Composite
by Ariza Luca
Summary: (Book 2 in the Hybrid series) It's been 7 years since the events of Hybrid. But now that a dark and ancient power known as the 'Admin' knows Jesse's name, Jesse's going to have to team up with friends old and new, and deal with bitter rivalries, fading friendships, a rather obstinate llama, more aspects of Jesse's hidden past... and change. (rated T for safeTy)
1. Prologue (AKA Log 2-1)

_**LOG 1-175**_

* * *

 _Nothing built can last forever. Every legend, no matter how great, fades with time. Each year, more and more details are lost, until all that remains are myths-half truths._

 _To put it simply, lies._

 _And yet, in all the known universe, from a small town that was devoured by a living storm to a dimension that's beyond even the Old Builders' reach, the legend of the HYBRID Order of the Stone endures, unabridged, as self-evident fact._

 _Indeed, it is only troubled lands that have need for heroes, and these lands were so fortunate to have, not so very long ago, FIVE heroes such as these._

 _PETRA the Blaze hybrid, whose hot temper, glowing blade, and deadly flames were often the fiery end to many a battle, even if said hot temper was the very thing that sparked said battles._

 _OLIVIA the Enderman hybrid, an amazing redstone engineer and an elusive creature of the End, where the monstrous Ender Dragon once dwelled and where creatures of darkness and a strange type of magic reside._

 _AXEL the creeper hybrid, whose explosive nature and destructive creativity caused damage greater than even the King of Boom Town could've imagined, and repaired damage that could've been far worse._

 _LUKAS the ocelot hybrid, whose sharp claws helped hold the team forever, and whose loyalty never wavered, even before he could remember the others that he'd called his friends._

 _And JESSE, the spider hybrid, who was always willing to lend her six hands to anyone in need, an amazing multitasker and friend, the first hybrid that the Old Builders ever created, and leader of the Hybrid Order of the Stone._

 _The road that these FIVE heroes, these FIVE friends have followed was paved by those who came before them. The Old Builders, the Old Order of the Stone, the Bureau of Amalgamology. They've discovered so many things so many things that may not have been possible had they not been what they were. New friends, new enemies, new allies, old friends, deaths and rebirths, memories that have been lost, then found, then fit back into place like a puzzle._

 _Their greatest quests have been recorded and stored away, in a book that remains in the Order of the Stone's treasure room, a file on a computer in the Bureau of Amalgamology, a distant file on a former scientist's computer, in one of the 'Author's' computers, and their story will be passed down and retold and passed down again through generations, and generations, and more generations. So many enemies have been defeated, and so many more have been made a friend._

 _These FIVE friends have given so much to be remembered as FIVE heroes, and have proved many times over that what Gabriel the Warrior once said, not so long ago, is true._

 _Anyone can be a hero._

 _Even a_ **hybrid.**

* * *

 ** _LOG 2-1_**

* * *

 _Seven years have passed since the Hybrid Order's adventures._

 _Seven years that have wrought change in Beacontown- Jesse's hometown- slowly evolving and growing as years have ticked on by. People have moved in, moved out, changed their ways, and begun new lives. New people have started floating in and out out of Jesse's life, as well as old friends and enemies and allies._

 _But seven years is a long time for friendships to not change as well. As time passes, all things are subject to change, and the Hybrid Order of the Stone is no exception._

 _With little time for adventures, more responsibilities, and less time for simple interactions, old friendships have begun to fade, rivalries have begun to emerge, and people's expectations for the spider hybrid are growing higher and higher- expectations that even the leader of the Hybrid Order is starting to have trouble to fulfill._

 _Well, at least until Jesse's hand gets stuck in a creepy, cursed prismarine gauntlet, and we discover the downside of fame that comes with being a hero- like having a dark and ancient power know your name._

 _A new adventure beckons, sending the spider hybrid on a journey that'll take her to the darkest depths of the world, and even farther. An adventure that will test friendships, reveal secrets, delve deep into the past, and that will change and shift the foundation of everything that Jesse has ever known and will_ ever _know_.

 _With old friends and new allies alike, treasure hunters, frenemies, family members, a rather disobedient llama, an ancient omnipotent deity that can control reality with a flick of his hand, and lots of people who will remember that, Jesse is going to embark on a journey through tough choices, ancient perils and dangers, mysteries that haven't been solved for a long time..._

 _... and it sounds like I'm just hyping up this story now, aren't I? I sound a bit like an advertising marketer._

 _Sorry. Been a while since I've written a formal log in this logbook. It's not like anybody I know is going to read it, haha._

 _It's time to reopen this story, and to figure out why this story, once of the Hybrid Order of the Stone and their adventures, has become a_ **COMPOSITE** _of betrayal, friendship, and change._

 _So let's get started._

* * *

"I always liked stories where the hero has no idea that they're destined for greatness. The sort of heroes who are living their lives, and assume that nothing exciting will ever happen to them."

 _Jesse knelt down, grinning at Reuben gently. "Give me a dragon roar, Reuben," she coaxed, somewhat playfully as she reached out and patted the Ender Dragon head, the pig's back, ignoring the way that the wings bumped into her hands and kept her from actually making much contact with him._

 _The pig let out a loud screeching oink, making her laugh a bit. "That'll do, Reuben. That'll do."_

"Those are the kind of heroes in this story. They started as just a bunch of friends in a treehouse, looking up to their idols who had come before them."

 _"Would you rather fight a hundred chicken-sized zombies," Olivia turned around, giving Jesse a lopsided grin- especially since her right eye was brighter than the other, "or ten zombie-sized chickens."_

 _"Yes, I'm ready." Axel shook his head a bit at Olivia's nitpickiness, rubbing his arm a bit. "Waiting on you guys!"_

 _"Hey, Jesse. Guys," Petra nodded a bit, pickaxe resting neatly on her shoulder and a cool grin on her face. Her usual sleeve-glove-thing covered her left arm, as usual, and her gold eyes glinted a bit._

 _Lukas rubbed the back of his head sheepishly, hair twitching infinitesimally. "No hard feelings, guys," he said, pleasantly enough. "If you're cool with Petra, you're cool with us._ "

"But when disaster struck, and an evil monstrosity threatened to destroy the world, those friends discovered that destiny had bigger plans for them. And that heroes can come from the most humble of beginnings."

 _Jesse increased her speed, now full-out sprinting for the gate, but it looked like she wasn't going to make it. Her foot suddenly caught, and she tripped forward-_

 _Her six arms lashing out automatically and stopping her faceplanting into the stone path._

"They travelled the world to battle that monster, facing obstacles and sacrifices every step of the way."

 _Jesse whipped off the cloak, red eye flashing as string shot out of her hands and tagged the TNT flying at her from the cannon. Desperately, she thrashed it away from herself, before detaching the string and lunging for the next one._

 _The spider hybrid handed the cloak over to Soren, narrowing her eyes at the Endermen peppering Wool World. Abruptly, her torso snapped forward, her hands slamming into the ground as her lower body- namely, her legs- rotated 180 degrees so it looked like that part of her body was doing a crab walk. Her lowermost set of arms also rotated, fangs shooting out of her mouth and eyes turning bright red._

 _Jesse's mouth fell open as she stared at the wall towering above her, holes and caves and strange, hovering chunks of land composing the entire thing. Waterfalls poured everywhere, and the wall towered up and up and up until they disappeared through the clouds altogether._

 _The spider hybrid leaped into the air, enchanted sword flashing with a miasma of color as it plunged down at the Command Block, eyes glowing bloodred as she did so._

"It wasn't easy, but they had each other. And working together, they struck it down and saved everyone."

 _"It's Magnus! We totally got caught by Magnus!" Axel's smile dropped off his face a moment later, and he sheepishly rubbed his head as he reconsidered what he'd just said, as he noticed the spider hybrid glancing over at him with a both deadpan yet slightly anxious expression on her face. "And... I think we're gonna die now."_

 _"You got me away from the Witherstorm," the Blaze hybrid spoke, her eyes oddly dim, "but I'm worried you didn't get me away soon enough." And she pulled up her sleeve to reveal a nearly_ silver _Blaze Rod, a strange, sickly purple spreading from the center of her arm and infecting her veins, angry red and purple and strange little specks decorating her arm._

 _Lukas shook his head, looking down at the ground uncertainly. "You have to have noticed," he began again, starting to get rather worked up, "the- the lack of energy, the labored breathing... there's something wrong, okay?! Something big. It's not fooling anyone." He paused, shoulders dropping a bit as his eyes narrowed in concern. "At least, not me."_

 _"How are we supposed to do this?" Olivia shook her head, a note of despair creeping into her voice as she shook her head. Her glowing, purple eye dimmed, especially noticeable with the literally ink-black skin around that eye. "We're_ nobody _."_

 _Jesse raised one of her upper arms into the air and pumped it in a cheering motion, a grin coming over her face. "For Reuben!"_

 _A resounding ROAR of cheering rose from the crowd, making Jesse wince and step back a bit with a small grin._

"Soon, they were the most famous people in the whole world. And their legend..."

" _I suppose I still have much to learn," Milo mused, the blonde innkeeper giving Jesse a weak, slightly grudging smile, "Thank you, Jesse."_

 _"I don't understand yet," Isa said simply, brushing back a lock of her black hair that was held back with the golden circlet that marked her as the Founder, "but... I trust you."_

"Their fame..."

 _"I don't want to forget anyone ever again," Jesse said softly, so quietly that she was almost perfectly inaudible. "I'm not forgetting_ you _again."_

 _Cassie was frozen in Jesse's hug for a moment, before she squeezed her eyes shut and forced tears to trickle out of her eyes, the two girls slowly sinking to the ground in a tight hug._

"Just continued to grow as they explored _more_ worlds..."

 _"Okay, eyes, not red,_ not _red... well, except-" Harper suddenly paused, blinking a few times before walking up to Jesse and leaning forward so that she was right up in Jesse's face, enough that the spider hybrid automatically leaned back a bit warily. The woman froze there for a moment, before stepping back and giving Jesse an uncertain, confused look._

 _"... Jesse?"_

"Venturing into the great unknown."

 _Jesse froze in place, eyes widening._

 _Standing not too far away was a boy with chocolate-brown hair, a pair of brown wolf ears... and Jesse's green eyes._

 _And in the final cage in the room made of obsidian... a boy with red hair. Pale brown eyes that were filled with life. Cute little pig ears resting in his hair._

 _"Reuben?"_

"And that's how those five friends," Lukas continued reading from the journal in his hands, pacing up and down the hallway with his tail and ears twitching anxiously, "plus the bravest pig- and eventually, hybrid- in the world, took their place in history as some of the greatest heroes that ever lived."

And the ocelot hybrid looked up at his friends with an anxious look, cyan eyes glinting a bit nervously. "Well...? How do you guys like it so far?" he asked, managing a nervous smile.

* * *

 **A/N: Eh. Slightly shorter than I would've liked, but I'm still satisfied with it.**

 **So, I'm TECHNICALLY still restricted from posting fanfictions, but I'll at least start rewriting Composite. (Really, really not satisfied with the original version I started writing. Too many self-inserts and ships. Blah.) I think I'll wait until Episode 5 releases to keep writing, but I'll at least release the first chapter.**

 **And also start working on HCM, and my million other fanfictions that I've got planned, and also Phantasmagoria (which has a completed script and is now being beta-read), and also work on YouTube...**

 **Yeah, I'm good at planning. xD**

 **Well, I hope to see ya soon! See ya, so long, and g'bye!**

 **x.X. A.L. X.x**


	2. The Squad is Together!

Jesse smiled and gave a nod, the spider hybrid's lowest set of arms allowing her to lean back a little while her middle set was wrapped around Reuben and her upper set rested on her knees. (Well, more like Reuben's knees, but close enough.) "I liked it!" she said pleasantly, red-and-green eyes crinkling up cheerfully, "Definitely an improvement on some of the earlier versions you read to us."

Reuben was squirming a bit, having gotten slightly bored after over an _hour_ of Lukas reading to them (he certainly _had_ the attention span of a thirteen year old, Jesse thought with amusement, even though she was pretty sure he was way _shorter_ than the average one), but quickly straightened up at the sound of Jesse's voice. "Uh— yeah, it was pretty fun! I liked it!" He paused, a thought having occurred to him. "Even though I... missed a big part of it when Cassie took me to the bathroom."

"Uh... sorry about that, kiddo. I'm still not really used to the bathroom placements." A few steps down from where Jesse was sitting on the top step, Cassie Rose smiled sheepishly, running a hand through her long red hair. She'd abandoned the habit of wearing beanies— Jesse suspected it had something to do with how Winslow would crawl under it whenever he panicked and scratched Cassie— and just left her hair down. Winslow was back at home in Bad Luck Alley, apparently. Her black-rimmed glasses were still the same as always, and she'd started wearing dark gray cardigans. Although she still usually wore shorts and sneakers. _Some_ things didn't change.

And one of those _some_ things was avoiding letting Reuben know about what Cassie had done as the White Pumpkin. Reuben often asked why Olivia and Axel still seemed a little wary around Cassie, because all he'd gotten when Jesse had gotten him back seven years ago was that they'd met her on their adventures. He'd since put down Axel and Olivia and Lukas and Petra and Ivor's wariness as being wary of a new person that they didn't know anything about, but after two or three years he'd gotten a little suspicious of how they still continued to avoid her in the hallway if possible, or of how they'd awkwardly try to end any conversations with her if they could.

Honestly, they still were quite wary of her. Lukas seemed a little more trusting, and Axel and Olivia hadn't been there so they were gradually relaxing around her, but Petra and Ivor hadn't changed their opinion about her too much. After the necessity of teaming up with her wasn't a necessity anymore— they'd brought her along partially because she was Jesse's old friend, partially to keep an eye on her, and partially because she could be use— _helpful_ , well— they had just started trying to avoid her if possible. Jesse wasn't sure if any of her friends would ever actually trust Cassie Rose.

Honestly, she wasn't entirely sure if _she_ trusted Cassie that much.

They _would_ eventually have to tell him about it, but Cassie figured that that could wait until he was 14. Personally, Jesse was pretty sure Cassie was going to say it could wait until he was fifteen when he turned fourteen, but she figured they'd cross that bridge once it came to it.

If they ever even arrived at it.

The part that Reuben had missed, of course, was the bit where Lukas was talking about the White Pumpkin Mansion, and the minute Lukas had started that portion of the story Cassie had taken Reuben to the bathroom, making sure to take him to the one that was the farthest away from the actual Order Hall. Jace had been very 'helpful' in stating that he didn't remember where the nearest restroom was, although his ears had twitched upon saying that and made it pretty clear that he was lying.

Speaking of Jace, Jesse glanced over at her wolf hybrid brother. His brown wolf ears were perked up a little now, and he was leaning forward and nodding pleasantly at Lukas. He'd been listening quite attentively to Lukas's writing, even though he _had_ to have heard the draft about thirty times by now. Jesse had once joked that the reason that he listened so attentively to Lukas was that he had a crush on the blonde.

Her brother had proceeded to chase her around town for an hour until they were both out of breath and called a truce.

Jesse still thought it was worth it. She had years of teasing her brother that had been taken away from her by Hadrian (she scowled at the thought of that name) that she had to make up for.

"Yeah, it was pretty good, Lukas. You've definitely gotten better at writing the action scenes. They sound more energetic," Jace said agreeably, tail beginning to sweep the floor in a bushy, wagging motion.

Olivia tugged at her ponytail before glancing over and jabbing her elbow into Axel's ribs. After a couple years, she'd switched out her pigtails for a more 'mature' ponytail, although she'd kept the green beanie and goggles. Over the years, squinting at redstone and poor handwriting had taken its toll, and she now wore a pair of wire-rimmed glasses to help with her now-rather-poor-eyesight. She also wore an unbuttoned red labcoat over a black suit with a white shirt and purple tie, and with her (honestly rather intimidating) height and the purple, glowing eye, she definitely looked a force to be reckoned with.

Not that she actually _was_ , she was still the same old Olivia Jesse had always known.

Axel was less intimidating somehow, wearing green plaid flannel and a black, unbuttoned shirt with a skull on it. Even being the burly guy he was, compared to Olivia he looked like a teddy bear.

Until he exploded. Both figuratively and literally. Then you had better start running.

Though you _definitely_ couldn't see that bit of his personality now, Jesse thought as she hid her smile as Axel jolted awake. "Whowhahuh? What part are we at?" he asked groggily, blinking the sleepiness out of his eyes, "am I being awesome?"

Rolling her eyes at the creeper hybrid, Olivia returned her attention to the ocelot hybrid, whose ears were twitching rather anxiously. "We thought it was great, Lukas," she told him, before pausing and tilting her head a little at him. "Though... not always entirely... accurate." The addition was a little softer, and more tentative.

"Yeah, well, I mean—" Lukas's cheeks turned a little pink as he reached up and rubbed the back of his head awkwardly, taking a deep breath as if gathering his thoughts. "I definitely _exaggerated_ here and there, but— it was for the _drama_." Even though his voice was level and calm, his ears and tail were twitching madly. He'd gotten back into the habit of wearing his old outfit, although the jacket didn't have an ocelot on it anymore, and he had metal shoulderpads. (Or, that might not be the correct term for it... never mind.)

"I mean, it made _us_ sound cool, and that's a good thing," Axel said with a nonchalant shrug, clearly not seeing an issue.

Jace grinned at Axel's comment, tail still wagging away at a prodigious rate. "Well, a _little_ exaggeration never hurts... but there were some points where it kinda seemed like the truth was getting stretched a little _too_ much."

"It..." Olivia rubbed her head a bit, accidentally upsetting the green beanie she usually wore and having to readjust it, "might make people think we did stuff that we didn't actually do."

Jesse just gave a nonchalant shrug, all six of her shoulderblades going up a little bit and then relaxing again, letting Reuben finally crawl off her lap, "Well, you're the writer, Lukas. I know you'll make the right call."

Lukas looked pleased at Jesse's comment. "Thank you, Jesse. I _had_ been hoping to have it ready to read at Founding Day, but, uh..." The ocelot hybrid shrugged, ears giving a little twitch as he did so. "Next year."

Olivia leaned back, making Cassie shift her legs aside to avoid having Olivia lean back and squash them. "I can't believe it's Founding Day _already_. Sneaks up on me every time."

"Congrats, Lukas," and Jace flopped over a little and grinned at the ocelot hybrid.

Jesse nodded at the ocelot hybrid herself, giving him a cheerful smile and finishing Jace's sentence for him, "I'm proud of you for finishing it. That took a LOT of work."

Axel made a little face at the fact that Jesse and Jace were finishing each other's sentences. Even though they lived apart (Jace actually had built a house back at the lab. They needed somebody to keep an eye on the now-falling-apart facility and make sure no one was resuming the experiments), Jace and Jesse had developed the odd habit of just finishing one another's sentences. Whenever they were actually with one another, it only took about five minutes of conversation for the habit to kick back into effect.

Lukas grinned at the two of them, ears perking up as his tail began to twitch around cheerfully. "I'm glad you guys liked it," he told them sincerely, before his cyan eyes flicked over to meet Jesse's. "You did so much, Jesse, you're... a real hero."

Jesse felt her cheeks turn slightly pink. She always felt awkward when people said stuff like that. It wasn't like she ever did _that_ much. All she'd done on Sky City was basically talk to people. It was the same in Crown Mesa and the Old Builder's world, and the stuff she actually _did_ do she couldn't have done without her friend's help.

"Yeah, Jesse's great!" Reuben exclaimed, gently butting his head into Jesse's shoulder. The thirteen-year-old usually avoided too much physical contact with his 'mom', but he still had habits from when he was a pig that he just kept.

Jesse started tickling him.

"But... we all did, right?" Axel asked hesitantly, over Reuben's squeals and giggles. Jesse was _very_ good with her hands, whether it be petting someone or tickling someone or poking people.

And yes, she'd poked enough people to say that confidently.

"Yeah." Olivia nodded in agreement with Axel's statement, glancing back at Lukas and letting her lips twist up a bit uncertainly. "We were _all_ there."

"Well, not me and Jace," Cassie corrected, "but definitely Axel and Olivia."

Jace grinned a little as he adjusted his red suspenders over the dark, long-sleeved shirt he was wearing. He'd been playing around and mixing and matching styles lately. He usually looked pretty good, actually. "Well, aren't you the humble one?" he teased Cassie, green eyes sparkling gently. For some reason, Jace was actually really okay around Cassie. In fact, he occasionally visited her in Bad Lucky Alley and made a point of just talking to her a lot. Jesse supposed having being essentially raised by Old Builders had kind of desensitized him to the whole thing.

It helped that Soren seemed to like Cassie as well.

Cassie rolled her eyes at Jace, but she perked up visibly. "Oh, hush, or I'll tell Petra you were flirting with me."

"It's not like Petra and I are dating."

If Jesse had been drinking any water, she would've snorted it out. Jace and Petra had a joking 'flirting' thing going on, probably just to embarrass the other one from how casually they 'flirted' with each other. Jace was currently in the lead, being extremely hard to embarrass and having been taught many, many pick-up lines from his sister. If Petra was hoping to embarrass him, she would really have to go for it.

Unfortunately, Petra didn't know many pick-up lines, and she wasn't extremely good at flirting anyways. But she made up for it with the enthusiasm of a tiger waiting to pounce on her victim, and the fact that she'd somehow started learning how to start talking in the most sing-songy voice when she was 'flirting' with Jace.

Jesse blamed Em and Cassie for initiating the whole thing.

Axel cleared his throat, reminding Jesse of the topic at hand. "For, uh... for most of it, anyway."

Lukas hesitated, ears and tail going still for a moment. "That's... true..." A short pause as he processed this fact. "Um..."

Jesse straightened up into a standing position, gently setting a now-giggling Reuben on the step next to her as she casually smiled at her friends. "Hey, c'mon, guys. We all did it _together_. We're the _Order of the Stone_ , after all— even Cassie and Jace!"

Lukas hummed thoughtfully at the remark, scribbling something down in the notebook using the quill. "It _is_ a good thing to note, though... I'll keep that in mind when I'm editing." After a moment, scrutinizing what he'd written, he nodded and looked back up at the rest of the group, eyes crinkling up a bit happily. "Well, this has all been _really_ helpful feedback, guys. Once Ivor and Harper get back from their adventures, I can add a chapter about _them..._ and then it will _finally_ be done!"

Axel hummed thoughtfully, tilting his head to one side. "Man, they've been gone a _long_ time."

The door at the end of the hall suddenly started sliding open with the slight scrape of stone, and Olivia's eyes slid over to check who it was. "Ah. Jesse. Your intern."

A thin, adorable-looking young man walked in, wearing a green jacket over his gold shirt accompanied with a blue tie. His thin, long nose held up a _gigantic_ pair of glasses, and his black hair stood up quite a bit on one side. "Jesse?" he asked nervously.

The spider hybrid grinned pleasantly at him, stretching a little bit. "Oh, hey, Radar!" she called to him cheerfully, Lukas quickly shutting his journal to avoid Radar peeking. He did that sometimes.

Radar suddenly stopped in his tracks, eyes growing wide and filled with stars in his excitement. "Oh. Gosh. Wow," he said, sounding as if he was in wonder, "I—I didn't know all of you would be in here. Heh. Olivia, ma'am." He began to bow to each of them in turn. "Axel, sir. Lukas, sir. Jace, sir." Jace saluted him with a cheerful grin. "Cassie, ma'am. So—so sorry to interrupt everyone."

Olivia grinned at the boy. "Awww... he is just _adorable_!" she whispered to Cassie, who grinned back. (And almost fell off the step when she realized Olivia was talking to her.)

Radar bowed again, looking rather nervous. "My deepest— sincerest, _utmost_ apologies if I've caused any inconvenience."

Jesse just laughed, trotting down the steps and lifting all of her arms in a pleasant shrug. "Radar, don't be so formal!" she laughed, "cut it out with all the 'sir' and 'ma'am' stuff."

"Right-o! Right!" Radar agreed enthusiastically, before grinning to himself. " _Awesome_."

"I kinda liked it," Axel replied nonchalantly, simply giving a light shrug.

Jesse glanced over at her burly friend, before back at Radar with a cheerful smile. "So, what's up?"

Radar nodded rapidly. "Oh yeah— I got a message from Petra that she's on her way to the mines," he replied, nodding rapidly at the spider hybrid, "for that adventure you scheduled?"

Even though Jesse wasn't facing them, she sensed the way Axel, Olivia, and Lukas gave each other awkward looks, although she was pretty sure Cassie gave a nonchalant shrug and Jace seemed to perk up at the idea of scoring another point in their flirting competition.

Somehow, Jesse didn't think this adventure was going to go as planned.

* * *

 **A/N: You would be very correct, Jesse xD**

 **So, this was a fun chapter to write! The next few should be pretty good, too. Next in the update schedule is The Fairytale Curse. X3**

 **Episode 5 is coming out on Tuesday next week! Expect a playthrough from me for that very soon x3 And I might re-add A Pure Heart (Ninjago) to the update list, since I'm rewriting it! What do you guys think about that?**

 **S4SH4L4SH4theGaMeR101: (laughs) Yep, I'm back!**

 **homeworkoverload: x3 Glad you like it.**

 **Emily The Avenger: Yeah, squad-less. I figure hybrids are already enough of an addition xD**

 **CamronXTheXGamer: Aw, I'm glad you like it!**

 **AquaK13: I've watched that like a billion times xD**

 **Rabbits rule: I'm glad you like it! And I'm glad to see you guys :3**

 **InsaneAcrobat: Yeah, Composite's original wasn't the best. And I'm now getting back into a... remotely regular update schedule. No weekends though xD**

 **LunarTheMooncake: Without the squad, but yeah.**

 **Toni42: Yeah, this is going to be great x3**

 **TheAmberShadow: Haha, you'd better believe it xD / I'm hoping I'll be back for a good long time now!**

 **J.M.M.: Well, fourth's time the charm? I guess xD**

 **andie: Sort of. I just ended up thinking I don't think I'll be able to write it properly, so I just decided to restart. (This is the last time, I promise xD)**

 **x.X. A.L. X.x**


	3. Beacontown

"If you hurry," Radar mused, "you should still have time for that _and_ your Founding Day duties..."

"Oh, nice!" Jesse said cheerfully, "we should get going, then!" The spider hybrid started towards Radar, Jace hopping to his feet and skipping over to where his sister was. Reuben dashed over himself, since he was so much smaller and had to take more steps to keep up with the bigger people (well, that's what he called them), while Cassie slowly stood up, stretched a bit, and followed them over to where Radar was standing.

"Yeah... uh... about that..." Lukas said hesitantly.

The three young adults and the teenager turned in almost perfect unison to see Axel and Olivia exchanging sheepish looks, while Lukas just looked outright apologetic. None of them seemed to want to be the first to initiate the conversation.

The Enderman hybrid finally looked over at Jesse as she stood up, towering over Axel a bit as she avoided Jesse's eyes. Jesse really hated that Olivia's right eye was an Enderman eye sometimes- it gave Olivia a reason not to look people in the eyes. "We've... actually got our _own_ Founding Day stuff we need to prep for," she finally finished, weakly.

"Yeeaaaahhh..." Axel winced as he reached up and rubbed the back of his head. "I... need to get back to Boom Town. I'm judging a TNT Rally in the morning."

Olivia glanced away from Jesse, rubbing her own head a bit awkwardly, although she was careful not to upset her green beanie with the goggles. "And... I need to finish grading some redstone assignments."

Lukas coughed awkwardly, his ears and tail twitching anxiously. One of his ears flicked. "I was... _really_ hoping to start in on these revisions..."

Internally, Jesse sighed. Over the past three or four years, the Hybrid Order of the Stone- the _original_ Hybrid Order- was starting to drift apart a bit. They lived in different places, they didn't see each other as often, and it was a very rare occurrence that they could go on an adventure together anymore.

Honestly, Cassie and Jace were the only ones who seemed to always have time for Jesse or for anything. And even Jace lived near the old Bureau of Amalgamology, so she only really saw Cassie on a daily basis anymore. (She saw Jace weekly, but still.) And the only reason she saw Cassie on a daily basis was because Cassie babysat Reuben.

Actually, it was kind of funny seeing the former White Pumpkin babysitting children and pets. Jesse had been careful to make sure the others didn't tell anyone that Cassie Rose had been, well, a murderer- she figured Cassie wanted a fresh start, and she already got enough backlash from the on Halloween, she'd even toss on the White Pumpkin costume (without the mask with the voice changer), and did a 'Find the White Pumpkin' tour in the town. Jesse was all too happy to help out as the tour guide.

It was quite fun actually. But it was still sad to see her friends, and, heck, even her _twin brother_ , slowly starting to drift apart.

Pushing down the sadness, she just smiled and shrugged a bit. It wasn't like she _never_ saw them anymore, and besides, at least they kept up a steady correspondence. "Aw, well, that's okay. I get it. You have your life, and so do I."

Olivia's shoulders sagged in relief, the Enderman hybrid looking _so_ incredibly relieved about Jesse's nonchalance towards the whole situation. "Ohhh. Thanks, Jesse."

Axel grinned, a sheepish grin coming over his own face as well. "Yeah, thanks."

" _Petra_ will never let you hear the end of it, though," Jace teased, patting Jesse on the back and making his sister grin back at him.

Everyone started to trot out of the treasure hall, Axel giving Jesse the most awkward smile of all time. "Tell Petra I said _next_ time for sure, okay?" After a moment of hesitation, he grinned, the eight of them continuing to walk out of the treasure hall with Radar falling into step next to and a little behind Jesse. She wished he'd walk next to her, at this point he'd been her intern for a year and a half and he was just still so freaking shy around her. "I can't wait to see how that sword of hers is coming along," Axel added, thoughfully.

"Yeah, I'll tell her!" Jesse said cheerily, the spider hybrid giving the creeper hybrid a friendly grin.

Radar clasped his hands together at his mouth, Lukas giving the slightly shorter boy a grin- seriously, the kid was younger than Jesse by eight years, nd he was still half a head taller than her. Typical- as Radar's eyes glowed with excitement. You could practically see anime sparkles surrounding him right now. "I can't believe I'm walking out of the Order Hall _with_ the Order! Haha!"

Olivia grinned, her right eye glowing slightly. "Aahh, so freaking cute!" she exclaimed, making Cassie and Jace chuckle slightly.

* * *

Jesse grinned at the cow balloon floating near the Order Hall. It was a very majestic decoration.

Okay, yeah, Jesse thought cows were kind of majestic.

... don't judge, okay?

"Sooo, the other towns have Founding Day celebrations, huh?" Radar asked, looking over at the other members of the Hybrid Order of the Stone.

"Of course!" Olivia exclaimed, looking to Radar with her right eye still glowing. Really, the Enderman hybrid _really_ seemed to like Radar for some reason. Like, the entire Hybrid Order liked Radar, but Olivia seemed to _really_ like Radar. "We were _all_ part of taking down the Witherstorm. Ellegaard and I actually engineered a music machine for the evening ball together the other day!"

"Yeah, it's mostly just TNT and fireworks in Boom Town," Axel spoke up, scratching his cheek. "Magnus and I designed the firework finale again this year!"

Lukas came to a stop in front of Jesse, Cassie, and Jace- who was staying in Beacontown for the night since they were all headed out on that adventure- as Axel grinned and Olivia gave an almost sentimental smile. "Well, I promise I will try and stop by," the ocelot hybrid promised, giving a pleasant grin, "it was _awesome_ to catch up with you guys."

"Totally!" Axel agreed enthusiastically.

"Yeah, this has been great," Olivia added cheerfully.

Cassie nodded, tentatively smiling at them. "Yeah, definitely... it's good to see you guys are doing so well."

Jace grinned and nodded, dispersing the uncomfortable tension that formed when Olivia and Axel exchanged slightly anxious looks with one another, not quick enough to hide it from Cassie, whose tentatively hopeful smile fell a little bit. "Yeah, we missed you guys!" he said agreeably, either oblivious to or ignoring the tension that had formed.

"Won't be the same without you guys," Jesse said, slightly wistfully.

"Awww, buddy," and Axel leaned forward and engulfed the petite spider hybrid in a tight bear hug, "you're gonna make me sad."

Jesse smiled nostalgically as Olivia bent down for a hug as well, before the two of them both headed off in separate directions to head back to Redstonia or Boom Town- you know, based on the person.

Lukas's ears twitched happily as he turned back to Jesse, Jace, and Cassie. "Thanks again, guys," he said agreeably. "I'll let you know as soon as I'm done with the revisions."

Axel managed to sound significantly less-than-excited. "Oh, cool. Can't... wait."

"Axel," Olivia scolded.

The creeper hybrid shrugged, before waving to Jesse and turning around again, Lukas giving Jesse a friendly goodbye wave as well before heading off himself. Cassie rubbed Reuben's head, making the young teenager grin up at her. She, Radar, and Reuben actually all got along famously. Sometimes if Cassie was sick or busy, and Jesse was busy- which was almost every day- Radar would babysit Reuben for them.

"I tell ya," Radar said, giving his head a cheerful little shake as he grinned over at Jesse, "I am just the luckiest."

"Yeah?" Jesse replied, rubbing her head and giving him a slightly quizzical look. She stepped down the steps and started heading into town, still glancing over in Radar's expression. Reuben hastened to keep up, while Jace and Cassie glanced at each other, shrugged, and followed along as well.

"Oh yeah!" Radar exclaimed enthusiastically, "Getting to work with you, hanging out with the Order, babysitting Reuben-" Reuben grinned up at the much-taller teenager at that, "and, living in the coolest town in the _whole_ world- Beacontown!"

Jesse grinned at Beacontown as well. The entire town was an explosion of color and cool builds, such as two trees that functioned as a tree bridge. The Aquatic District was where Radar lived (at least, Jesse was fairly certain), and there was a floating whale and a big, floating clownfish there as well. Near Ivor's lava house- or, really, now it was his and Harper's lab- was a giant statue of a purple octopus, and in Bad Luck Alley, near Cassie's mini version of the Twin Moon Manor, was a big building that was decorated with structures that looked like giant crayons. On the main street, the bookstore was next to a weird house that looked like a giant thing with a face and magnets. (There was not a better way for Jesse to describe it.) The hodgepodge of fascinating and sometimes quirky builds gave the whole town its own, unique feel, showing places where people came from and where that heritage came from, things in people's imaginations, and making the whole town feel like a hybrid (Jesse grinned at the joke) of different places and times cobbled together into one.

Jesse couldn't help but laugh as she spotted a few multicolored parrots flutter through the air, and about fifty more all over town. Some guy called Jon Stauder had brought several with him when he'd moved to Beacontown, and they'd fly everywhere. Like, _everywhere_. Once, Jesse had woken up to find a parrot in her room with a tiny parrot egg on her lap.

She hadn't thought so at the time, but it had been incredibly funny.

"I realize that some days, Jesse'd rather be out adventuring with you guys," Radar said to Jace and Cassie, before turning his attention to Jesse with a pleased grin, "but... I'm really glad you're our leader. You just... make this place _awesome_ , along with Cassie and Reuben."

Cassie smiled sheepishly at Radar. Honestly, they hadn't told _him_ about her past, either- it was too complicated to explain, and honestly, Cassie was trying to leave that stuff behind as much as possible. He _did_ notice the tension between her and Lukas and Axel and Olivia and- whenever Petra came to town- Petra as well, but he put that down as them having gotten into a fight or something. Jesse and Jace hadn't seen a good reason to tell him otherwise.

"Well, I really do love this place," Jesse agreed in a friendly way, "and it just keeps getting cooler."

"Right?" Radar almost squealed, making Cassie grin at the teenager and pat him on the shoulder. "I love it too. It's exactly the kind of home I'd always dreamt of having." He paused, before rubbing his head. "I, uh... I know that Petra's waiting for you in the mines-"

Jesse, Cassie, and Jace automatically glanced over in the direction of the mines, decorated by two giant pickaxes crossed over one another. Jesse had come up with the idea to make it look a little nicer, and everyone had thought it was a good idea. "- but I get people would really appreciate you helping set up for the celebration."

Jace grinned at the idea of scoring some points in their flirting competition. "Well, what are we waiting for? Let's go!" and the wolf hybrid dashed off deeper into Beacontown before the others could react.

Cassie chuckled, reaching out and ruffling Reuben's hair with a warm grin. "Well, I guess I should go make sure he doesn't run down without us. Can you handle Reuben for a while?"

Jesse jokingly scowled at Cassie. "Cassie, Reuben's _my_ kid," she pointed out, unable to help the amused smile that twitched over her lips.

"Aww, I was hoping you wouldn't notice," Cassie replied easily to Jesse, and the two girls giggled a bit at the joke before Cassie headed after Jace to make sure he didn't just bolt off without them.

Jesse grinned after Cassie. She might not trust Cassie ENTIRELY still, but Cassie at least seemed to be more at ease now, so that was good. Glancing down at Reuben, she set her lowest set of hands on her hips. "You wanna come with us on our little adventure today with Petra?" she asked, cheerfully.

Reuben's eyes lit up. Jesse rarely let him go off on too many adventures with them- she wanted to make sure he was well-trained enough for most everything before launching him into this sort of thing- so for her to let him come along on any of them was a real treat for him. "Yeeeees!" he cheered, dancing around in a little circle (and making Jesse hide a grin at how absolutely _adorable_ he was).

Radar's eyes grew round and wide at this. "Wow... can Reuben handle himself?"

Jesse chuckled, gently ruffling the pig hybrid's hair. "Oh yeah. He might not look it, but he can be a pretty tough little guy," she said cheerily, making Reuben grin and swat her off gently.

The three of them- Jesse, Reuben, and Radar- quickly continued into town, admiring how people were setting things up for Founding Day (one person had recreated the Enderman statue that Jesse had built back at the Endercon Building Competition _years_ ago), before spotting Cassie and Jace. Jace was turning around in little circles, looking around with a bewildered expression on his face, as if he'd smelled something. Cassie was staring at him in bemusement.

Jesse wandered over to where Jace was turning around and around in little circles, giving her brother a cheerful but quizzical smile. "Uh, hey, Jace, whatcha doin'?" she asked, quirking one brow at him. The habit that she'd picked up from Ivor back in the lab had developed so that she'd completely mastered the expression.

A nearby door opened, and a very, _very_ familiar voice called out, "Jesse dude!" The blonde girl from the Old Builder's world, wearing her old competitor's outfit (but changed up so that it looked _much_ more comfortable, with jeans and sandals and the sleeves off), strolled out of the door with a wide grin on her face.

"Nell!" Jace shouted in delight and beating Jesse to it, dropping to all fours and bolting up the small flight of stairs leading up to the door of what _looked_ like a surf shop, tackling Nell in a tight hug with his tail wagging up a storm.

Nell staggered backwards, lost her balance, and tripped backwards with a resounding thud, but she didn't appear at all annoyed about it- actually, she looked quite excited about seeing him as well. "Jace, dude! 'Sup!" she cheered, clapping him on the back and returning his tight hug. "So _totally_ radical to see you!"

"Nell!" Jesse echoed Jace's shout of delight from a moment earlier and walked forward, putting her lowest set of hands on her hips, middle arms crossing, and her upper hands reaching up and lacing behind her head almost casually. "I thought you were out seeing the worlds?"

Nell shrugged and gave a vigorous nod of agreement. " _Did_ that! Righteous times!" she gently disengaged herself from the hug with Jace, the wolf hybrid looking _ecstatic_ at seeing his old teammate, "thought I'd try settling down for a while." She crossed her arms and gave another casual shrug, "Like, I _love_ danger and derring-do as much as the next person, but sometimes, you just wanna have a place to store your junk, okay?"

"Well, I'm sure Em will be excited to see you, too! She lives somewhere between Beacontown and Boom Town," Jace said, scrunching up his face as he tried to remember. "It's a nice farm with a ton of chickens. I think she's calling it Doonesbury Estates?"

Jesse grinned. She remembered visiting Em a couple months back. Despite not having been the _best_ of friends when they'd parted, Em had been quite happy to see them again, and had cracked Jesse's ribs slightly by giving the spider hybrid a tight hug. (She'd also cracked Jace's, so that was at least fair.) "Yeah, I'll bet she'll be pretty stoked to see you again."

Nell nodded, storing that information away, before Jesse spread her arms out wide, grinning up at the blonde. "Well, I'm _so_ glad you're here!" she exclaimed, her grin growing quite wide.

"Yeah, I never expected to see you again, or something dramatic like that," and Jace's tail wagged away happily. "It's _so_ good to see you."

"Ditto," Cassie added.

Nell beamed at them. " _Man_ , that is _just_ the sort of warm welcome I'd hoped from you guys. You guys _rock_ , dudes." She paused for a moment, before plopping down on the steps and tilting her head slightly. "Between you dudes and me, though, I'm worried that I won't, like, fit in here... so many rad builds, _awesome_ people... I really wanna make, like, a good first impression, you know?"

Reuben's face was rather blank. To a little pig hybrid who mostly only spoke Pig, some Chicken, English (clearly), and some Spider (he'd picked it up from staying with Jesse all the time), this surfer talk was like a completely different language to him. He looked at Radar.

Radar shrugged at him a bit.

"Which, I _thought_ might be helped if my front yard had a statue by the one and only Jesse?" Nell asked, gesturing at the sort of pedestal that was next to Nell's house.

Jesse hummed thoughtfully, reaching up and touching her lip. "Not sure if I have time... _but_ , I'll see what I can do!"

Nell grinned, clambering back to her feet. "Hey, hey, hey! This is gonna be _so_ cool. Scoop up that clay over there-" Jesse glanced over and spotted a huge pile of clay. "And let's get to business!"

Jesse went ahead and grabbed several blocks of clay from the pile (actually, she just took the whole pile to be safe), before heading over to the pedestal.

... and then realizing she didn't actually know what to build.

Good job realizing it this late.

* * *

 **A/N: It's up to you guys to decide what you want me to build for the statue! You can decide on most anything (within reason), with the materials available. It can't be a very big statue, but feel free to decide on whatever you want!**

 **AAAAHHHHHH, the Season Finale of Season 2 was SO good! Though it... did leave some room open for another season with the open ending and a couple remarks. I'm not going to say anything since people might not have played it yet... except that it was fREAKING AMAZING**

 **Replies to reviews!**

 **TheRealRedGaming: Hi Red, how are you? Long time no talk/see!**

 **TheAmberShadow: Something tells me that you are probably right xD / Yeah, hybrids have pretty good stamina. xD / Hehe, I thought it was a good compromise between the actual shipping and being friendly. Plus, it gives me an excuse to use dozens of terrible puns xD / Hehehe, isn't he?! He's so cute. x3**

 **Lunar: Yeaahh, I didn't really know how I wanted it to go, especially with the season finale holy crap. x3 / Yeah, it was bad originally xD**

 **Emily The Avenger: I know no Spanish, so xD / NICE!**

 **J.M.M.: Probably xD**

 **Toni42: I like it better too, it's much better than the original! And awwww, that's such a cute thought. Now I'm never going to be able to get it out of my head, lol xD**

 **Princess of Muffins: Oh really? I couldn't tell! xD / Yeah, I'm hoping people enjoy this version better than the original draft version. / I loved the trailer, and I loved the actual episode. Both were perfect x3**

 **CamronXTheXGamer: x3**

 **Artificial Cloudz: (squints) I think I've seen you on YouTube / I'm excited to write it myself! / Yeah, she is an ex-murderer. Honestly, even a murderer regretted things here and apologized, and they let them go, I'd probably be really wary to trust them again myself, no matter what they said.**

 **S4SH4L4SH4theGaMeR101: (laughs) I see.**

 **x.X. A.L. X.X**


	4. Co-Existing Peacefully (Sort of)

After several moments of blank staring at the area where Nell wanted the statue, Jesse finally shrugged and began placing clay blocks as high as they could go at the back of the pedestal, so that two pillars rose as high as she dared let it go. Quickly using her six arms to propel herself onto one of the pillars, she started placing blocks in a general spiderweb-y pattern.

Reuben, Cassie, Radar and Jace picked up on what she was doing very quickly and called out encouragement and advice to her so that she didn't have to jump off, step back and look at it, and then go back to working on the statue.

Reuben's 'advice' was more of just encouragement, while Cassie pointed out areas that were too closely spaced and Radar rattled off advice and encouragement in a single breath. Jace simply occasionally pointed out that if you placed a certain block _that_ way instead of _that_ way, it tended to look better.

So, Jesse found that after only one or two minutes (in comparison to five or ten, like usual), she had a very respectable-looking spiderweb statue in place.

To top it off (and to suit the theme of Nell's shop, which seemed to be a surf shop), Jesse moved forward several paces from the spiderweb statue and built a surfboard in front of it. It was blue.

Jesse liked the color blue.

Nell beamed when she got a look at the new statue, her blue eyes lighting up. "That is some _sweet_ work- _noice_." Turning to Jesse, she abruptly threw her arms around the shorter girl in a tight hug, startling the much-shorter spider hybrid a little bit. "Oh, Jesse dude, _thanks!_ "

"It was my pleasure!" Jesse replied cheerfully the moment she could breathe again, Nell releasing her from the throes of the bear hug mere seconds later.

"Well it is an _honor_ , mi amigos, and don't be strangers, okay?" Nell asked, giving Jesse and Jace a cheerful wave before walking back towards the shop and making a beeline for the jukebox.

Radar blinked at Nell a bit- he clearly didn't really know how to react to her. "Well, she is a... fascinating woman, isnt she?" he asked, finally. "Very free spirited."

Jesse chuckled a bit, turning to face Radar again and absentmindedly setting her hand on Reuben's head. (The pig-teenager glanced up at the hand, but didn't try to bat it off.) "Heh, yeah," she said agreeably, "kind of reminds of Petra back in her early days." She paused, before crossing her middle set of arms while keeping her lowest hand resting on Reuben's head. "Speaking of whom, you said she's waiting for me at the-"

Radar got what Jesse was asking and nodded, pointing in the direction of the pickaxes- which, of course, marked the mineshaft. "Mineshaft," he confirmed. "Mmhm."

Jesse glanced at her brother, letting an amused smirk come over her face. "Now, Jace, are we going to walk _together_ to the mineshaft, or do I have to put a leash on ya, huh?" she asked her brother teasingly, putting one hand on her hip.

Jace grinned sheepishly, making Jesse's grin widen. "Haha... sorry. I was just excited. The last time I scored a point against Petra was _weeks_ ago!" He threw his hands into the air to emphasize the point.

Cassie chuckled at Jace's comment. "You score points against Petra all the time, Jace, you'll be fine-"

Abruptly, an explosion of yapping came to life at their feet, and Jesse and Cassie jumped in surprise and looked down to see that a tiny wolf puppy was now running in circles around Jesse quite happily. Jace's grin grew, and he bent down and barked cheerfully to the puppy. It barked back at him but continued running in happy circles around Jesse.

Reuben grinned as well, crouching down to get a better look at the puppy before giving a fairly good bark at it. The puppy yapped back and kept dashing around Jesse in circles.

Jace's grin grew even more. Reuben had been trying to teach himself to talk to other animals- mainly chickens, cats or ocelots, dogs, and even a bit of Spider- with surprising success. Jesse swore that it was easier to learn when you were a kid, because she'd tried too and apparently had called Jace a "wet tiger" a few months ago in Wolf. But Reuben was fairly proficient in all of the languages now- enough to at least understand most basic conversations.

"Oh! Wink, get back here!" scolded a familiar voice that made Jesse look up in surprise, "leave Jesse and-"

Standing not seven feet away was Stacy Plays, her green eyes wide with surprise. And sitting on a low wall right next to her was Stampy Cat, a bewildered look fixed on his face as well.

But they weren't looking at Jesse right now. It wouldn't have made sense if they were, because Jesse was the leader of Beacontown and they surely knew that, so it shouldn't be a surprise to see Jesse. But they weren't staring in shock at Jesse right now, were they?

No, they were staring at the girl with brilliant red hair standing NEXT to Jesse.

"... Cassie Rose?"

Oh boy.

"Hey, Reuben," Jesse spoke up quickly, making the pig hybrid look up from where he was crouched next to the skipping puppy, "I just remembered, I left one of my better iron swords back at the Treasure Hall, and we're gonna need a few for the trip today. Could you go grab 'em?"

The pig hybrid blinked up at Jesse, looking slightly surprised. Usually, Jesse was very insistent on running back to get her own things if she'd left them, especially if it was a weapon of some sort. Reuben would offer to fetch things for her, but she told him it was okay.

It... may have been a slight protective side effect from when she'd told him to fetch the sword in the Witherstorm and he'd died because of it.

Jace stood up, having picked up very quickly on what Jesse was getting at. He acted like a kid sometimes but he was _definitely_ not dumb. "Oh yeah... c'mon, Reuben, I'll walk ya there."

"Aww, Jace," Reuben complained up to his 'uncle' as Jace turned and started leading Reuben away, "I can go by myself!"

"Yeah, but I know a shortcut, so it'll be quicker this way."

Jesse hid a grin. Knowing Jace, he was going to take methods that LOOKED like shortcuts but actually took quite a while just so Reuben wouldn't overhear this conversation that they were about to have as they disappeared from sight and probably earshot quite quickly.

Best brother ever.

"Cassie- Cassie?!" Stacy exclaimed, looking startled at the sight of the redhead and finally regaining control of her tongue. "You're- you- how are you here?! I thought you died!"

Cassie winced as a couple heads turned in their direction. Stacy's exclamation had been a _teensy_ bit loud. "Um... hi, guys," she said weakly, lifting a hand and giving a feeble wave.

Stampy goggled at her, scooting backwards instinctively and nearly falling over. "Um, uh, y-yo-you're not- you're not going to kill us, right?" he asked, voice rising into a nervous squeak.

The former White Pumpkin flinched and threw her hands up in the air, almost knocking her glasses off of her face in her haste. "N-no! No no no! Of course not! I-" She paused, realizing that the way she was about to put it sounded a little weird and that there was a small crowd of people staring at them in confusion and a bit of concern.

Jesse thought quickly before turning to the rest of the people- trying not to trip over Wink or step on his tail or anything- and waving casually at them. "Uh, nothing to see here, folks!" she called out to them with a slightly sheepish grin, aware that now Cassie, Stacy, and Stampy were staring at her as well. "We're just, um-" An idea popped into her head. It was a very, very silly idea, but right now any idea was a good idea to her.

"We're- practicing for the 'Find the White Pumpkin' tour this Halloween!" she blurted. "We're planning on adding a new aspect to it this year. B-but since it's completely new, we have to practice a lot to get used to it, so we're starting early this year."

Somehow, the extremely silly excuse Jesse had just come up with worked, and most of the crowd relaxed and continued going about their day. Jesse let out a little sigh of relief, shoulders dropping as she turned back to the other two, putting her hands up nervously. "Can you guys keep it down, please? Cassie's... trying to put all that behind her."

Stacy frowned at Cassie, crossing her arms and giving the redhead a dubious look. "Oh, is she?" she asked, in a rather suspicious tone.

Cassie flinched a bit this time, tearing her eyes away from them and looking at the floor. Her shoulders were starting to hunch, and Jesse was painfully aware that they were extremely close to Bad Luck Alley. Hopefully Cassie wouldn't just bolt off home.

"Do people know that she's the White Pumpkin?" Stacy continued, squinting at Cassie suspiciously. Stampy was fidgeting just behind her- looking as if he was trying to figure out what he wanted to say but not sure what it was. "Do they know that she was... a murderer?"

Thunder rumbled through the sky. When Jesse looked up to check the weather, though, there wasn't a dark cloud in the sky.

Weird.

"Well- they know that she dresses UP as the White Pumpkin for the tour thing every year," Jesse spoke, still keeping her voice low, "but... not everyone knows that she was the _real_ White Pumpkin."

Which was true. Lukas had offered to change the information in his first book about the White Pumpkin once he'd finished most of it, but Cassie had told him (uncomfortably) that she'd done something wrong, so _she_ had to face up to the consequences. Actually, her willingness to take responsibility for it was what had started changing everyone's opinion about her, although that was still a work in progress.

What had surprised Cassie the most was that most people... didn't really have a reaction. Sure, they treated her a little more warily, but most people still seemed alright with her. Even parents kept letting her babysit, although several did quit using her as a babysitter after learning that she was the former White Pumpkin. And the children didn't know (of course).

Jesse had been a little surprised, but figured out the reason after asking a couple of people.

They hadn't _known_ Cassie when she was the White Pumpkin. They didn't know her as the girl who pretended to be a different person and then killed people using redstone traps. They didn't know her as the girl who was so desperate to get home that she'd been willing to do anything, _anything_ to get home. No, they only knew her as the nice red-haired girl who kids really liked and who tried to be helpful all the time.

Sure, were they a little worried that she might revert to acting like the White Pumpkin? Absolutely. Actually, quite a few of the people who seemed the most casual with Cassie seemed to be the most concerned.

But they saw that Jesse seemed to trust Cassie quite a bit, and they all trusted Jesse's judgement. (This had made Jesse stare at them before going "Are you sure you're talking about the right person?" This had caused them to laugh.) They all had decided that if Jesse trusted Cassie- even if it wasn't ALL the way- then Cassie was okay.

Jesse still thought this trust in her judgement was a bit misplaced, but she'd decided not to voice that concern. She WAS the person who'd known Cassie for the longest out of the Hybrid Order, after all, even if they hadn't seen each other for years. And... she could tell when people were being sincere. She was quite certain that Cassie had been extremely sincere back then, and she still was quite certain that Cassie was sincere now.

So... what the heck. She might not have completely forgiven Cassie, but... she supposed that she trusted her.

"And they're... okay with that?" Stacy continued, still staring at Cassie suspiciously.

Jesse shrugged slightly. "Most people seem to be okay with her. I mean, sure, they're a little wary around her, but..." She gently set a hand on Cassie's shoulder, making the red-haired girl flinch automatically. "But Cassie's changed. She's not the same person she was back then. And..." She glanced over at the redhead, before giving Stacy a small smile. "She's much more like the Cassie I used to know."

"Did you know her before?" Stampy asked, sounding a little more curious now.

"Well, technically, yeah, because when I was a kid I lived in a lab which was called the Bureau of Amalgamology, and the lab had scientists that developed hybrids, and Cassie's aunt was one of the scientists, and Cassie and I were friends, but then I got brainwashed into forgetting everything so I forgot that Cassie existed, but my memories came back when we reached the Twin Moons world and I remembered Cassie, and-" Jesse paused upon seeing the completely blank and confused expressions currently on the two YouTubers' (seriously, what WAS a YouTuber? They'd never explained it) face. Judging by their expressions, they had no idea what she'd just said.

"Yeah, we were friends when we were kids," Jesse decided to summarize.

There was a long pause, before Stampy glanced over at Stacy with an unreadable expression. Stacy met his eyes, and the two of them regarded each other for a minute before Stampy turned back to Cassie, moving to get off the wall.

Cassie flinched automatically at that.

Stampy crossed his arms, regarding Cassie with a slightly uneasy look. "I... I don't know. But... if Jesse's okay with you, I suppose..." Stampy paused, before plowing forward, "I suppose we can at least peacefully co-exist."

Jesse had to hide a huge relieved sigh at that. If he'd said otherwise, well, that could've gone wrong.

Stacy's expression was still extremely stony, her arms crossed across her chest as she considered the idea. Finally, it softened just the tiniest bit. "Yeah... I guess we can call a truce or whatever." A moment later, her expression hardened again, and she raised a finger and pointed at Cassie, narrowing her eyes. "But _look_ at us funny and I will sic Wink on you."

Cassie stared at Stacy blankly for a moment, blinking at the other girl.

"You... how can you..." Cassie reached up and held her head for a moment, expression pinching up a bit as she tried to gather her feelings. "How can you just... be okay with me... after... after I...?"

Stampy bit his lip. "Well, we're not... not _okay_ necessarily. But... we're willing to let you try to redeem yourself, I suppose?"

Jesse could see Cassie opening her mouth and let out a little sigh, squeezing Cassie's shoulder and making Cassie look at her. "Cassie, you're human, like the rest of us. You're a person, just like the rest of us. It might take you a while. A _long_ while. Heck, it might even take the rest of your life, but..." The spider hybrid paused, before smiling a little at Cassie. "But you _can_ be redeemed. You just have to make that effort."

The redhead stared at Jesse, blinking rapidly. Jesse could've SWORN she could see tears beginning to well up in Cassie's eyes.

Finally, Cassie hid her face and started letting her shoulders shake. The spider hybrid didn't have superhuman hearing or anything, but she could've _sworn_ she could've heard sniffling, which made a small smile come over her face.

Maybe it was just that Jesse was too nice. Maybe it was the fact that Cassie had insisted on spending six months in jail when they'd gotten back from their adventures and things had calmed down a bit despite her absolute _hatred_ of feeling trapped, and had spent those six months in jail without Winslow or anyone to help assuage her phobia of being trapped. Maybe it was the fact that Cassie had been trying her damndest since the Twin Moons Manor to make up for it.

But anyone who could show that they regretted their actions this much couldn't possibly still be a bad person, right?

* * *

 **A/N: Foreshadowing!**

 **Yeah.. I tried to make this more natural. Cassie just being forgiven without a hitch was a weird thing. She's spent some time in jail, she's clearly been working her butt off to try to show that she's really sorry, and she clearly regrets what she did. And not everyone has forgiven Cassie or trusts her- we see that with a lot of the other characters. Even Jesse hasn't fully forgiven Cassie.**

 **But she does deserve a chance to show that she's changed.**

 **Replies to reviews!  
**

 **Princess of Muffins: Thanks! / Haha, I guess not, but thanks for the input!**

 **TheAmberShadow: Haha, that would be pretty fun, wouldn't it? / Well, on THIS site. On other sites I've seen a few people who don't like him. / (chuckles) Nope. / Hopefully! / Sort of went with your idea! It wasn't exact, but it was a spiderweb!**

 **aquagirl555: Haha, thanks! I'm glad you like it. / There's already a ginormous octopus statue right there though xD / Added a surfboard, how's that? xD / True.**

 **appliances: Haha, thanks for the suggestion... fam. xD**

 **CamronXTheXGamer: ... no. It was a joke. / Hm, thanks for the suggestion!**

 **S4SH4L4SH4theGaMeR101: Jesse has built a thing xD**

 **LunarTheMooncake: Lol, neither will I! / Thanks for the suggestion, even though I didn't use it!**

 **J.M.M.: Haha, I suppose that's true.**

 **Toni42: Riiight?! / Yep, spider themed-statue. (And water. Water's nice, too.) / Thanks, Toni!**

 **x.X. A.L. X.x**


	5. Wandering Around a Little

"Well, anyway," Jesse said at last, giving Stacy and Stampy a friendly smile, though still slightly awkward, "I didn't expect to see you guys here!" Wink was _still_ running in circles around Jesse and Cassie, having apparently not sensed the tense atmosphere around them.

Stacy gave a shrug and a slightly lopsided grin. "Thought we'd give this town of yours a try."

"It's quite lovely!" Stampy agreed instantly, giving a slightly brighter grin than Stacy.

"Yeah– and I can't believe how many people are here!" Stacy added, giving the crowds of people meandering past a slightly wider grin.

Jesse clambered back to her feet and dusted herself off a little, giving them a slightly brighter grin as the little puppy kept running around and around her. "Well, it's _so_ great to see you!" she said happily. "We need to hang out sometime!"

"Oooh, can I join?"

Jesse rolled her eyes with a grin. Judging by that very familiar voice, and the iron clinking on the floor with every alternate step that Reuben took forward, the two boys were back. "Yes, Jace, of course you can join," she drawled back cheerfully, the pig hybrid drawing level with her and doing his best to haul her sword along behind him.

"Oh, who's this?" Stampy asked curiously, tilting his head at the wolf hybrid and letting the slight wariness on his face be replaced by surprise.

"Ahh, that's right, you guys haven't met Jace yet. Stacy, Stampy, this is Jace– he's my twin brother," Jesse introduced the excitable wolf hybrid, who flailed his arm in a cheerful wave. Cassie, who'd started standing up, had to duck right back down as his hand sailed through the space her face had been about to occupy. "He's a wolf hybrid."

Stacy perked up significantly at that. "A wolf hybrid?"

"Oh, I didn't know you had a twin brother! It's lovely to meet you!" Stampy chirped before Jesse could reply, patting the wolf hybrid on the shoulder. Jace's eyes lit up, and his tail started wagging away.

Cassie smirked a bit as she straightened back all the way this time, running a hand through her getting-very-long red hair. "Careful– if you pet him too much, he's going to start following you around all day."

Stampy grinned back at that, although his smile dimmed slightly and was tinged with nervous energy. "Ah, really?"

Jesse gave her eyes a cheerful roll, making the two YouTubers (she _still_ didn't know what a YouTuber was) chuckle a little at her. "Oh, you've got _no_ idea. You know how Lukas likes being petted? This guy is _so_ much more high-maintenance." Absentmindedly, she reached up and started stroking his hair. The wolf hybrid's shoulders immediately lost all tension and his eyes drooped a bit, dreamily. A low rumble formed in his chest, a sort of muted, pleased growl.

Radar finally drew level with them, making Jesse snatch her hand back from Jace's head and making him snap out of it and stick his tongue out at her playfully. "Ah, Radar– this is Stacy Plays and Stampy Cat," she introduced again, gesturing with her arm and being careful not to move around too much and accidentally step on the still-running-in-circles-around-her Wink. Stampy and Stacy both waved at him, smiling pleasantly at the 16-year-old.

Yes, Jesse had a 16-year-old as an intern. She'd only been seventeen when she'd defeated the Witherstorm. What was the issue with that?

Radar beamed cheerfully, nodding back at that.

Stacy let out a long sigh as Wink kept skipping around Jesse. "Oh, Wink... here, Jesse. Give him a bone and he'll calm right down." And Stacy passed three bones to Jesse, who took them before crouching down, the puppy skidding to a halt right in front of Jesse and panting up at her in excitement. Jesse's eyes gleamed cheerfully as she reached out and patted him on the head, the puppy's body going still before he insistently butted his head into her hand, practically nuzzling into it.

That escalated quite quickly from there until the puppy was literally lying on his back, letting out little cooing sounds as Jesse rubbed his tummy.

"Huh. I guess you didn't need the bones at all," Stacy said cheerfully, the grin she now gave Jesse a genuine one, "he likes you."

"Heh, yeah, I guess so." Jesse ruffled his fur as she stood back up, Wink rolling back over and skipping back over to Stacy with a happy series of yaps. The spider hybrid looked at the bones in her hand, rattling them a bit, before holding them out towards Stacy again. "You want the rest of these back?"

Stacy shrugged and made a gentle waving motion in her direction. "Nah, hang onto them. I've got TONS. Never know when you're gonna need to tame a wolf."

Jesse shrugged back, giving Stacy a wide grin. "Well– thanks!" she exclaimed cheerfully, pulling out one of the bones and waving it in Jace's direction. The wolf hybrid snatched ahold of it with such eagerness that it actually made Jesse's hand sting a little bit, biting into it with such excitement that it was actually quite cute, tail wagging so furiously that he could've swept a floor with it and left it nearly spotless.

"I imagine you're terribly busy, so we won't keep you guys," Stampy said kindly, "but, you should come and see what we're working on because– it's pretty cool!" His voice turned into a sing-song at the end.

"Yeah, what Stampy said," Stacy agreed cheerily.

"Anyways, our place is by the gate," and Dan gestured over his shoulder in the general direction of the gate.

"Will do!" Jesse chirped, grinning at them. "See you guys later!"

The two YouTubers grinned, Stampy getting off the wall, before the two of them started walking towards their place. At the last second, Stampy twisted around and walked backwards for a bit, waving furiously at them. "Bye Cassie! Bye Jace!" he chirped. "Bye, Reuben!"

Cassie looked a little cheered by the parting, giving Jesse a small smile. "Well... that went a lot better than I'd expected."

"Darn right!" Jesse replied cheerfully.

Reuben blinked blankly at them, hefting Jesse's sword up and trying to hand it back to her. "Did something happen while I was getting the sword?" he asked, blinking innocently up at them.

Cassie and Jesse exchanged a look.

"... not really."

"Yeah, not really."

Starting up the walk again– after Jesse quickly picked up her sword and sheathed it– the five of them came to a halt next to a monument for Reuben when he was still a pig. Jesse had built it ages ago, and she supposed she could've taken it down after Reuben was back, but she couldn't bring herself to do it, so she'd just left it up.

Reuben abruptly wrapped his arms around her, making Jesse blink down at him. He rarely hugged her this tightly anymore, since he was a 'super mature thirteen year old' (his words, not hers) and he felt it was embarrassing to hug his 'mom'. (He'd slipped up and called her this in public one time.) "Love you," he mumbled into her side, so quietly she almost didn't hear it.

But she did, and as Reuben's sort-of mom, it was her obligation to embarrass her technically a teenager.

So she grinned and, using one of her middle arms, ruffled his hair. "Awww, love ya too, kiddo," she told him cheerfully, making him let out a little whine in her direction and bury his now-rather-pink face in her side.

"Ohmygosh it's you!" And a guy– presumably the owner of three little pigs snuffling around on the ground– practically _danced_ over to her, beaming in joy. Reuben looked up at the guy who was approaching and blinked.

"Oh, yep– it's me," Jesse told him, smiling cheerfully. "What are you doing here?"

"Oh, wow, this is actually perfect." His grin grew with excitement. "For Founding Day this year, we're picking a pig to play the part of Reuben on the float!" And he gestured at the three little pigs oinking away behind him.

Radar beamed, clapping his hands a little bit. "Oh, that's really cute!"

" _Right?_ Eh, would you two–" The guy grinned and looked from Reuben to Jesse, "be interested in... maybe helping me pick? I mean, who knows Reuben better than Jesse and Reuben himself, right?"

Cassie hummed thoughtfully at the idea. "Haha, yeah... talk about knowledgeable casting."

"It would be an _honor_ to say that the pig was hand-chosen by Jesse and Reuben for the casting part," the guy continued, literally gushing.

Jesse looked down at the little pig hybrid, who was still hugging her tightly. "Y'alright with that, kiddo?" she asked, cheerfully.

Reuben hesitated for only a moment, cheeks pinking– he wasn't used to so much pomp on his part, even after six or seven years of it– but he finally nodded. "Mmhm."

Jesse looked back up at the pig guy, giving him a warm, genuine smile. "I'd love to! Seems like the least I could do. And since it's okay with Reuben..." She let the grin grow.

The guy looked as if he could've danced for joy. "Oh, that's _fantastic!_ Thank you so much."

The spider hybrid nodded and turned to the pigs, who were all lying on the ground or doing various piggy things. "Alright, let's see 'em!" she said cheerfully, the pigs jumping to their feet at Reuben's little oink in their direction and lining up in a straight line facing Jesse.

"Okay, piggies," the pig guy practically sang, "show Jesse your good side!" He then strolled along behind them, indicating each pig as he did so. "That's Esteban..."

Radar tilted his head at the pig, squinting at it a little.

"Smushy Cutecheeks..."

Cassie snorted loudly at that, finding a floating cloud nearby _utterly_ fascinating.

"And Lord von Thunderpork VI."

Now _Jace_ was starting to titter, and even Jesse was valiantly fighting a grin as she scrutinized the pigs. Most of them looked... identical (honestly), but Smushy Cutecheeks and Lord von Thunderpork VI looked pretty cute. She looked over at Reuben, lips twitching slightly. "Well, what do you think, Reuben? I like Lord von Thunderpork and Smushy Cutecheeks right now," she told him, cheerfully, trying very, _very_ hard not to burst into giggles.

Reuben carefully scrutinized the pigs, before saying, with a completely blank expression, "I like Lord von Thunderpork VI the best. He looks super regal."

Jesse excused herself to go laugh in the corner.

After the guy had thanked them all profusely, and Jesse had stopped giggling hysterically in the corner, the five of them moved on. Jesse paused next to a patch of sugar cane and broke some off, grinning at it cheerfully. "Sugar!"

Don't ask me why she randomly broke off some sugar.

Cassie grinned all of a sudden, looking extremely amused for some reason. "Don't let Jace eat it."

"Okay, I wouldn't just eat _raw_ sugarcane-" the wolf hybrid protested, but Jesse wasn't fooled- she could still see his grin.

Reuben moved off on his own, Radar's eyes following the little kid carefully, as Cassie teased the wolf hybrid, "Well, I dunno, I wouldn't put it past you."

He slugged her on the shoulder and stuck his tongue out at her. "You're mean, ya know that, Cassie?" he told her, pouting at her in this playful way. You would've felt bad for him if his eyes weren't sparkling, and if you weren't Jesse and realized that that was the same teasing pout he gave Petra when he was attempting to fluster her.

Cassie just grinned back at him.

Reuben came back and popped an egg into Jesse's lowest right hand.

Jesse looked down at the egg, bemused, before back up at Reuben with a quizzical grin. "Uh, thanks kiddo, but what's the egg for?" she asked, confusion peeping into her voice.

"The chicken over there laid one. I didn't wanna waste it," Reuben replied, cheerfully.

"I am _telling_ you, Stampy- it _needs_ to be pumpkin pie."

Jesse blinked at the accidental interruption, before looking over to see Stacy and Stampy having a sort of faceoff. They weren't mad at each other or anything, but their arms were crossed and they were both making squinty eyes at each other.

"But cake is the best! Stampy argued back, "and I would know, I have it _every morning_ for breakfast!" Stacy rolled her eyes at that statement.

"That does not sound healthy," Cassie muttered, making Jace grin.

"Uh, there... some sort of problem here, guys?" Jesse asked, looking and sounding slightly concerned as she and the rest of the group approached the YouTubers. (Cassie somehow managed to put the rest of the group between herself and the YouTubers in the span of three seconds.)

"Hello, Jesse!" Stampy greeted her again cheerfully, "we heard about this Founding Day celebration of yours and we thought we'd make some sweets!"

"Yeah," and now Jesse looked over to see Stacy putting her hands on her hips and shooting Stampy a look, "and NOW I'm trying to convince Mr. Stampy here to make the right _decision_ and pick pumpkin pie."

Stampy sighed, turning back to Stacy again, ending right back up in the face-off position. "There you go with those leading presentations again."

"Just..." Stacy let out a sigh. "Not everyone likes _cake_ , Stampy."

"Oh, and pumpkin pie is the _universally_ loved food? I think not."

"I, uh," and Radar gave a friendly little cough, "I'm a cookies man myself."

In perfect unison, both Stacy and Stampy slowly turned from their little face-off to deliver a fierce glare in Radar's direction.

Jesse's intern looked suitably cowed. "Sorry," he whispered back, shrinking back behind Jesse.

The spider hybrid decided to rescue him and casually sidestepped, blocking him from view. "Why don't you make both?" she asked, offering what she certainly thought was a plausible solution. Certainly the argument couldn't go on for much longer if they made both.

"I mean, it's a wonderful idea," Stampy exclaimed, "but we don't have enough ingredients."

"Probably a good thing. Jace would just get hyper on sugar," Cassie grinned at Jace teasingly. He proceeded to punch her on the shoulder.

Stacy gave her head a solemn shake, ignoring Cassie. (Which... Jesse supposed was at least better than outright hostility.) "It's true. Here." She reached into her pockets- and abruptly threw a cloud of ingredients into the air.

Before Jesse even knew what was going on, her six arms shot out and caught various ingredients smoothly, putting them away and reaching out to catch the next one so quickly that she had all the ingredients safely tucked into her pockets within the span of 2 seconds.

Jace and Jesse high-fived without even looking at each other.

Cassie gave an impressed whistle at the display, Radar golf-clapped his hands together furiously, and Stacy and Stampy grinned at the impressive display. Even Reuben was hopping up and down with slight excitement.

"Uh, sorry about the- cloud of ingredients I just threw you," Stacy chuckled, grinning sheepishly at Jesse, "but... yeah. As I was about to say before that, why don't you choose what to make?"

"Yes, I fear we're going to be debating in circles all day otherwise, heh," and Stampy gave a sheepish grin and shake of his head.

"Y'know," Radar said softly, as Jesse moved away from them, so as to not have the two of them overhear what he was about to say, "I think you might have enough ingredients with that egg and sugarcane that you got just now. I bet you have enough to make cake _and_ pie."

"Ooh, y'think?" Reuben perked up. Ever since becoming human, he'd developed quite a sweet tooth. He preferred the natural sweetness of pie to the sugary and creamy texture of cake, but he liked both quite a bit.

Jace put his hands on his hips, giving Reuben a gentle scowl. "You only get one if Jesse can make both, young man," he said, in his most official manner.

"Like you're only going to eat one," Cassie joked to him quietly.

"I am a role model, unlike some people. I shall show some restraint in this matter," Jace said, in such a lofty voice that Cassie immediately broke down into a giggling fit, Jesse had to slap two of her six hands over her mouth to stifle her laughter, Reuben and Radar both started giggling, and even Jace started chuckling after maintaining his lofty air for about a minute.

Once Radar and the others had mostly recovered, Radar adjusted his glasses and squinted a bit before nodding. "Yeah- I think you might just have enough to make both."

Jesse hummed thoughtfully with a nod, squinting her eyes together. "I don't have a lot of _time..._ " and her eyes flickered to the mines, only meters away, "but..." She smiled at last, a grin coming over her face. "I'll see what I can do."

* * *

 **A/N: Who knew being detailed could yield longer chapters? It's a miracle! xD**

 **MY MINECRAFT STORY MODE SEASON 2 GAMEPLAY HAS ALL BEEN POSTED TO YOUTUBE! FINALLY!**

 **Replies to reviews:**

 **LunarTheMooncake: Yes, she does xD**

 **AquaK13: (clears throat) / Pffff xD / No, it's fine, that was so cute xD!**

 **Guest: What does 'I a d' mean? xD**

 **J.M.M.: Haha, right? That was so funny. / In HCM, they collectively agreed to call the world that Cassie Rose was in 'Twin Moon(s) World'. In the actual Hybrid/Composite, they eventually also adopt this name.**

 **x.X. A.L. X.x**


	6. Hey Petra

Moving quickly to the nearby crafting table, Jesse was quick to place down all of the ingredients to make a pumpkin pie and a cake. With the sugar cane she'd randomly broken off earlier, and the egg that Reuben had brought her, Jesse had just enough to make both items. Cassie grinned when she saw both of them. "Oooh, they'll definitely be surprised," she grinned.

Jesse beamed back at her friend and moved towards the two YouTubers, who looked up at Jesse's approach.

"He said cake," and Jesse nodded at Stampy. "She said pie," and she indicated Stacy. "I said... why don't we have _both!_ " And she pulled out both and brandished them both, beaming at the two YouTubers. Radar grinned as well, Cassie's smile fading as she casually sidled behind Jace to hide herself. Jace grinned at the two sweet items with his tail wagging, and Reuben hopped up and down a little bit.

"Oh, well–" Stampy took the cake with a delighted expression on his face, one that made a little warm feeling blossom in Jesse's stomach. "This is very surprising!"

"Yeah, that's awesome!" Stacy agreed cheerfully, grinning down at the pie Jesse had just handed her. "How'd you do that?"

"Found a couple extra ingredients around town," Jesse replied brightly to the two, "no big deal!"

Stampy's grin was practically splitting his face. "Well, that's fantastic, Jesse! Thank you so much!"

"Yeah, this is perfect!"

Only ten minutes had passed before the two of them had set up a booth that read 'Cake and Pie'. Jesse, Reuben, Cassie, Radar, and Jace were allowed the first pieces as Stampy and Stacy got into place behind the booth. Jesse opted for a slice of pie, Reuben also opted for one (he pouted when Jesse cut his portion to a rather small one, but didn't complain), Cassie had just stood there awkwardly until Stampy offered her a slice of cake, and Jace had decided on cake.

(He might've asked for pie, but he was trying to set an example.)

Jesse finished the pie and high-fived the brunette, before going ahead and high-fiving Stampy as well. "Hey, this was great, but I gotta run. Petra's waiting," and she glanced over her shoulder at the mineshaft, "I'll talk to you guys later, okay?"

They waved as the entire group moved away, Cassie still finishing her cake off and Jace cramming the last bite into his mouth so that he looked like a chipmunk. "Byyyyyeeeee!" Stampy sing-songed cheerfully, Wink letting out a cheerful goodbye yap as they moved away.

"Well, we haven't seen Petra in a while," Jesse stretched with a warm smile on her face at the prospect of seeing Petra, all six arms cheerfully stretching out, "so this'll be fun."

The wolf hybrid mumbled something around his mouthful of cake, before swallowing the whole mouthful and wiping some of the frosting off his mouth. "Yeah, I can't wait to score more points against her!" Jace rubbed his hands together with a huge, slightly mischievous grin on his face, making Cassie grin at him.

"Is that all you care about, Jace?"

"Well, I've been looking forward to this all day."

"EEEEE!" Jesse jumped in surprise at the sudden squeal, while Reuben put his hands over his ears and winced– that had been very loud to his ears. They all swiveled in almost perfect unison to see a fangirl doing a little jump-dance in place, holding her hand up for a high-five. "Jesse! Jesse! Gimme five!"

The spider hybrid glanced at Cassie and Reuben, who both gave little shrugs, before giving a good-hearted nod and strolling over to the fangirl, slapping the fangirl's palm in a neat high-five. The fangirl's eyes widened to the size of dinner plates, and she let out another squeal as she did a hyperactive dance. "You high-fived me. ME! You _totally_ made my day. You rock!"

And she ran away.

Jesse looked sheepishly over at her brother, her kid, her friend, and her intern. Cassie just gave her a mischievous grin and shrugged casually. "Hey, I'm not the one who saved the world from the Witherstorm."

"Agggh, I knew we shouldn't have told you about it. Now every Founding Day you just rub it in my face," Jesse sighed teasingly with a shake of her head, which made Cassie cackle.

"Here we are at the mines!" Radar announced as they drew level with the entrance, Jace running to the chest and throwing it open, rifling through and pulling out an old, dented set of iron armor. Jesse hid the smile threatening to split her face– Jace was _really_ excited to score some points against Petra, wasn't he?

"Nice. Thanks for walking with us," Jesse told the 16-year-old cheerfully, reaching out with her lower arms and accepting the modified iron chestplate Jace had just handed her.

"Oh, no, thank YOU, Jesse," Radar said sincerely and very enthusiastically, which made Jesse shoot him a quizzical smile as she began to put the chestplate on. Jace handed Cassie a normal iron chestplate, making her grin and nod in thanks, while Reuben reached in and pulled out one of the smaller ones that Jesse had made for him. "It was a pleasure watching you work, it truly was," Radar elaborated when he spotted the curious look she was giving him. "Stopping to help all those people, helping them prepare for Founding Day... very inspiring."

Jesse smiled warmly back at him, before leaning over and helping Reuben tighten the straps on his armor, which made him let out a good-hearted whine. "I can do it myself," he told her.

"I know, but you do it a little loose and I don't want that rattling right off of ya." She gave him a gentle smile as she gave the straps one last tug.

"I'll, uh, keep watch on things here while you're gone," Radar spoke up, rubbing his head anxiously as he regarded the four of them. "Off... doing your adventure-y things." He paused for a moment. "Risking your lives..." Another pause. "Spitting in fate's eye..."

Jesse laughed, hopping back to her full height, which was not at all impressive. "Got all the faith in the world, buddy. You got this," she told him earnestly. "Besides, Jace, Reuben, and I are hybrids. We kinda, as you put it, 'spit in fate's eyes' all the time."

Radar gave a light little chuckle, his cheeks turning a darker, slightly embarrassed shade. "Thanks, Jesse. I won't let you down."

Jesse gave her intern a confident smile, the entire group beginning to descend into the mines. Reuben was dancing a few steps ahead, Jace was going a little ahead to keep him from going too far, Cassie was adjusting her long red hair as she marched after them, and Jesse was bringing up the rear, all six arms moving. She turned to face him, marching down the stairs backwards for a few paces. "Don't we always?" she called back up to him with a grin.

* * *

"Petra?" Jesse called out as she gently dusted her armor down, uppermost arms cupping around her mouth to amplify the call. Jace looked around, ears twitching eagerly, while Cassie kept an eye on Reuben, who was doing a little vibrating sort of dance like a Mexican jumping bean.

The only sound currently audible was the sound of pickaxes clinking repetitively into rock.

"She... did tell us to meet right here, right?" Jace asked, frowning a little as he glanced around.

"Yeah, definitely..." Cassie nodded in agreement, before cupping one hand around her mouth. "Petra?"

There was still no reply. Jesse frowned and moved a little deeper into the mines, green and red eyes gleaming in the dimness of the mines. "Where... are you?" she murmured, slightly bemused.

Instead of Petra, what came in response was the sound of a zombie's moans. Jesse's head snapped around to see four zombies approaching them, lurching and clawing their way towards the group unsteadily.

"AGH!" And all of them jumped a little bit, Cassie whipping out her axe and Jace drawing his sword with the sound of metal scraping on the sheathe.

"Stupid ffffff–" and Cassie's eyes widened and her lips were trapped in forming the 'f' shape for a moment when Jesse shot her a pointed glare and then flicked her eyes to Reuben. He _was_ thirteen, but she did NOT need her thirteen year-old knowing a lot of swears at the moment. Cassie made a point of not cursing in front of kids, but with Jesse and Jace she felt so comfortable with it that she'd forgotten that she technically wasn't supposed to. "–ffffffffizzy zombies!" she finished.

Jesse yanked out her own iron sword, narrowing her eyes at the approaching zombies... before letting the glare fall into a big, relaxed grin. "Ahhh... I kinda missed this," she said, pleased.

Reuben dropped to all fours, while Cassie gave the spider hybrid a blank look. Jace just shrugged, smiling at his twin. He couldn't say the same, since he fought with mobs all the time during his weekly (sometimes monthly) commute to Beacontown, and since he sometimes went on adventures with Petra, and Cassie had less duties than Jesse so she was always going off on her own to do some mining or some fighting. Once, she'd brought back an enchanted bow and popped it onto Jesse's wall.

Yeah, she still hadn't said where she'd gotten from.

Jesse suddenly started coughing as the smell reached her. Jace made a little gagging sound, Reuben wrinkled his nose, and even Cassie made a little face as the stench of rotting flesh hit them. "Uh, smell– not so much," Jesse finished, sounding a little strained, before the four of them moved forward to engage the zombies.

Cassie twirled her axe casually, before making a single flick of the wrist and sending the zombie's head flying with a well-placed slice of the axe. A moment later, both exploded into smoke and dust simultaneously. The former White Pumpkin was _really_ good with her axe– to the point where it was actually surprising.

Jace sidestepped as his zombie approached, before lunging at it and tackling the zombie to the floor. The moment its rotted head made contact with the floor, his sword went up into the air and the zombie got a taste of his sword– literally, because he smashed the sword right into its face and it vaporized a moment later.

Reuben dove over Jace, hands landing on the ground, before he used the forward momentum to launch himself into a little backflip, slamming his feet into the zombie's face and knocking it backwards. He took the opportunity to dive at its legs and deliver three hits to points on the leg that on a normal human would cause maximum discomfort, but in the case of the zombie caused it to actually topple over. He then raised his foot and slammed it right onto the zombie's head in an unelegant but highly effective stomp, and with a squishy crack the zombie dissolved into smoke.

Yep, training in him hand-to-hand combat had been a good idea.

Satisfied that the other three weren't having any problems, Jesse turned back around to face her own zombie, which had been steadily lurching towards her and groping the air to grab ahold of her. She strolled forward to meet it now and drew her arm back as far as it would go, before simply lunging forward and driving the blade straight into the zombie's chest. The tip of the sword went straight through the zombie's body, and a moment later a cloud of foul-smelling dust and smoke hit her face, nearly making the spider hybrid gag a little.

"Look at that," and Jesse blinked and shook her head a little, catching her breath, before turning to see who was speaking. "Punctual _and_ kicking butt."

Jesse relaxed, sheathing her sword again and giving the speaker a broad grin. "Hey to you too, Petra."

The Blaze hybrid grinned at Jesse, gold eyes gleaming in the dimness. Her armor, a mix of her old outfit and of the armor that Ivor had created for her that was cobbled together somewhat haphazardly, seemed to glow in the dark, and her bandana had some gold thread decorating the edges now– a pet project that she and Ivor had both worked on one day while they were bored.

Before she could say anything, though, Jace stepped forward and slung an arm around Petra's shoulders with a pleasant grin. "Hey, Petra. Do you have a tan, or do you always look this hot?"

Petra grinned back, letting her eyes droop almost seductively in response. "Why don't we go somewhere by ourselves," she almost _purred_ in response, gently tracing a line on his arm, "and I'll show you exactly how _hot_ I am."

Jesse gasped audibly, covering Reuben's ears and making the pig hybrid let out a little "hey!" in complaint. "Petra! There are children present!" she exclaimed, sounding playfully offended.

Jace suddenly let his arm drop, dropping his eyes to the ground before Petra could reply to Jesse, a grin spreading across her face. "Petra..." he said, voice growing smaller.

Petra looked at him, blinking in surprise. He'd never done this before. "Uh– yeah?"

"I have to ask you something... since you're a Blaze hybrid and all..." Jace's shyer expression turned into a flirtatious one. "I'm scared of the dark, can you sleep with me?"

Petra's eyes widened a little, and a light blush dusted her cheeks. The moment it came on, she let out a gasp and clapped her hands over her cheeks, but the damage was done. Jace's flirtatious look turned into one of exultation. " _Yes!_ One point for me!"

"Oh– you jerk," Petra grumbled, her blush growing slightly darker but not retaliating this time. Turning away from him with a blush and a huff, she gave the others a wry smile. "Hey, Reuben. Cassie." The smile faded a little as she nodded at Cassie, before widening a little at Jesse. "Jesse. Glad to see you remember how to use your sword. I was worried that you'd gotten rusty." And the Blaze hybrid strolled over to them, Jace following just behind and looking extremely pleased that he'd scored a point. "I can't even _imagine_ that life. Managing people, signing papers... _bleh._ " And Petra made a face before giving Jesse a good-hearted grin.

Jesse crossed all of her arms, giving Petra a warm smile. "I really do miss this. Y'know–" one of her middle arms gestured at the others, Jace giving a teasing smirk, Cassie shyly adjusting her long red hair, Reuben beaming at Petra cheerfully, " _Us_. Adventuring together, facing the unknown..." Her smile grew a little softer. "I wish we could do this more often."

Petra spoiled the moment a second later as she arched her eyebrows. "Except, I'm gonna have a hard time being seen with someone wearing such dingy armor." She reached out and rapped on the chestplate Jesse was wearing, making a hollow metallic clunk as she did so. "What _is_ that? Iron?"

The spider hybrid rolled her green and red eyes at Petra. "I didn't _want_ to dent the good stuff, so what?"

Cassie gave a light, slightly playful smirk as she gestured at the sword in Petra's hand. "And look who's talking with an _iron sword_ ," she teased, being extremely sure to keep her voice light and cheerful. "Where's your fancy gold one with all the enchantments?"

Reuben was perhaps one of the only people to notice the way Jace's expression changed to a more serious one, eyes widening the _tiniest_ bit, before he glanced away as if checking for zombies. Petra's face fell into a more sheepish one a minute later as Jesse made a humming sound at that. "Hey, yeah... I can't remember the last time I saw you without it..."

"I... uh..." Petra bit her lip slightly as she sheepishly reached up to rub her head.

"Uh, sorry to spoil the reunion," Jace spoke up suddenly, making all of them glance at him, "but, zombies." And he pointed at a small army of zombies that was approaching.

"... oh joy."

* * *

 **A/N: Yaaaaay xD**

 **But hey, Petra's finally in the story! ( y)**

 **Also, by the way, Dan was in the story last chapter by accident... yeah, it was Stacy or Stampy, not Dan. Typo. My bad. xD**

 **Replies to the reviews!**

 **LunarTheMooncake: Yes you do xD**

 **ShiningHopeBeast: Yay! / Oh, whoops, didn't see that.**

 **TheAmberShadow: Whooops– I'm so sorry, I didn't notice that! / Oh yeah, haha. xD / Yeah, I love that part! / Yes, I know. I just wanted to meet with Petra on time. xD / Cool :3**

 **AquaK13: He can certainly flirt, though xD / Oh, that would be interesting xD / Yeee :3 / Yeah, Reuben may or may not kick Romeo in the nuts for that later on xD / I love cookies too xD / Yeah, but it was a typo xD**

 **J.M.M.: Yes, re-read it if you don't believe me.**

 **Toon Moon: LMAO really? xD**

 **x.X. A.L. X.x**


	7. Lots and Lots of Cardio

Petra rolled her eyes, a huge grin spreading across her face as she raised the iron blade, the tip pointing aimlessly at the zombies. Flames shot up the blade, dancing and throwing spooky, beautiful shadows and light through the darkness of the mineshaft. Jesse unsheathed her iron sword again (although it did not light up like Petra's), Jace doing the same from where he was perched behind her, while Cassie flicked out her axe.

Reuben just tensed his knees slightly, brown eyes squinting at the zombies intently.

"Ready for more?" Before anybody could either respond to Petra's easy comment, or ask her what she'd meant- had she been asking the _zombies_ if they were ready for more, or the others- the Blaze hybrid had practically flown forward, and one zombie was already disintegrating into a tiny pile of dust.

She dodged a clumsy swipe and almost casually flicked the blade upwards, scratching this zombie's nose and promptly making the monster erupt into flames. "Haha, too slow, zombies! Typical."

"I value my breath, so it'd be really nice if you didn't take it away every time you walked by, Petra," Jace said mildly, doing a neat jump over the zombie that Petra had just set on fire while using his sword to tip it like a domino into the one right behind it, which then immediately also caught fire a second later. He instantly pivoted and jabbed his sword into it, making it vaporize into a cloud of smoke and dust particles.

Cassie let out a slightly annoyed huff as she charged a cluster of three zombies, one of them lurching towards her at a faster speed than the other two. "Really? Is-"

She twirled the axe before taking ahold of it with both hands and swinging it like a baseball bat, making the first zombie flicker red as she sent it flying backwards into the other two, knocking all three to the ground like bowling pins.

"- _now_ really the time to try to score more points against each other?"

She raised her axe into the air, the handle snapping smoothly into her palm, before down the axe came and it pulverized through all three zombies in a single blow.

"Cassie, they flirt with each other all the time; I think they could be hanging over an active volcano and they'd still try to score a point against each other," Reuben replied to Cassie's question as his big brown eyes darted over one zombie, evaluating it quickly, before he sprinted forward and sent a side kick at the zombie's knee.

With the kick, the zombie's knee bent backwards, making it stagger- and then Reuben grabbed ahold of the zombie's hand and drove its clawed fingers through its own head, making it explode into a column of dust.

"... that was really gross."

Jesse stifled a snort at that, turning back to her own zombies (there were two of them) and driving her sword into the nearest one without skipping a beat.

The moment the zombie's decaying vocal cords let out a groan in complaint, Jesse spun around and slammed her lower arms into the zombie's chest, knocking it off of her sword and straight into the other zombie, which unsteadily caught itself. Before either could regain what little balance they had, Jesse's sword had darted in a straight horizontal line.

Both zombies now found it rather difficult to regain any balance that they might've had, as they no longer had heads.

"Haven't lost my step yet!" the spider hybrid said cheerfully, shaking some of the dust off of her blade before re-sheathing it, both zombies crumbling to dust silently behind her.

Petra let out a light chuckle, turning to face Jesse as she put away her own iron sword. "Well, you sure showed me." The Blaze hybrid adjusted her gleaming gold arm so that it rested on her hip. "Gotta say, I _really_ appreciate you making it on time. Means a lot to me."

"Well, of course I'd make it on time. Why wouldn't I?" Jesse asked, as Reuben cheerfully stretched in his iron chestplate. The pig hybrid's ears bounced a little as he relaxed from the stretch.

Petra's glowing gold eyes dimmed slightly, and the Blaze hybrid reached up and scratched her head somewhat awkwardly. "I... sometimes worry that you don't have time for your friends anymore. I know you enjoy your job, or whatever."

Jesse's expression promptly became more solemn, her red eye gleaming in the darkness. Petra spotted the expression and hastily put her hands up in a position that indicated surrender. "Not- not that I'm trying to make you feel guilty or anything."

"Petra, come on. You know you guys are more important to me than anything else in all the worlds," Jesse said, spreading her arms out to emphasize her point.

The redhead rolled her eyes, although she couldn't help the pleased smirk that snuck over her face. "Okay, well, now you're just trying to flatter me."

Cassie rolled her eyes slightly, a small smile forming on her face. "Are you saying you don't like it?" she teased gently.

Petra's expression grew a little colder, the gold light in her eyes dimming slightly when Cassie said that. "What do you care?" she muttered, making Cassie's small smile fall instantly into a more awkward expression.

"Anyway, I can't help but notice that we're missing one, two, _three_...?"

Petra's quizzical comment had barely started trailing off when Jesse had started speaking up, "Axel has Boom Town duties-"

"Olivia's grading something or other in Redstonia," Cassie chimed in.

"And Lukas-"

"Is writing, I figured," Petra sighed, crossing her arms and interrupting Jace before letting out an irritated sigh. "Man, our friends have gotten lame."

Reuben instantly frowned at that. Jesse winced awkwardly at the way Petra had just put it, while Jace and Cassie exchanged an awkward look. That had been a rather... _harsh_ way of putting it.

"I swear, if our old fans could see us now..." Petra trailed off upon noticing the looks they were inadvertently shooting her, and let out another sigh. "I'm just saying, I don't care how good Lukas's next book is... it's not exactly slaying a Witherstorm, you know?"

"Well, don't get bummed," Jesse said, giving Petra a light pat on the back with her uppermost set of arms. "Even without them, _we're_ still having fun, right?" And she offered a careful smile. Sure, it was a bit harsh, but it was a lot better than the way Petra used to outright snap at people or snarl at them or just get _pissed off beyond belief_ at them.

Petra's dimmed eyes slowly lit up a little bit again, her arms uncrossing. "Yeah, that's a good point." She marched forward a couple of steps and gently punched Jesse on the shoulder, making a solid clunking sound as her knuckles made contact with the iron. "At least we've got the cool people here." She shot a teasing grin at Jace. "Did it hurt when you fell from heaven, by the way?"

Jace didn't blush at all, but he arched one eyebrow. "Did you just call me a devil?"

Petra casually shrugged, sweeping back some of her short red hair. "Well, yeah. You can't be ice cream because you're so hot."

"I can give you a kiss if you'd like. If you don't like it, you can return it," Jace said, his voice lowering to a very enticing sort of purr.

"My body has 206 bones. Want to give me another one?" Petra asked, her own voice slowly shifting into a very... _seductive_ tone of voice.

Cassie clapped her hands over Reuben's ears, making the pig hybrid yelp in protest.

"If you're talking about what I think you're talking about, that's not a bone, that's a muscle. And the only muscle I'm willing to give you is my heart," Jace purred back, stepping closer to Petra and ignoring his now grinning-like-a-maniac sister.

"On a scale of 1 to 10, you're a 9." Petra slipped one hand onto his shoulder, running it down his arm lightly while shooting him a look that would've made any other person's face start flushing a dark red- though it was hard to tell whether it was out of embarrassment or attraction. "'Cause I'm the one you need."

"Notch, you two, stop flirting," Jesse said lazily, poking Petra and Jace in the ribs simultaneously with her middle set of arms and making both of them yelp and jump away. "Mind you, I'm proud of your flirting skills, but I assume Petra didn't ask us to meet in the mines because she wanted to score points against Jace."

Petra's expression became more serious in the span of a blink. "You're right. We'll worry about it later; we've gotta hurry."

Cassie blinked, hands slipping from Reuben's ears to rest on his shoulders instead. "What exactly are we looking for down here that's got you in such a hurry?" she asked, looking very bemused as Petra started walking deeper into the mines at a brisk pace.

"I'll... tell you guys when we find it," Petra said, vaguely, "just trust me, it's important."

Literally a half-second later, a strange, 'bleating' sound echoed through the tunnel, making everyone's head snap around to stare through the tunnel that the miners were currently working in.

"... what was that?" Jace asked, with a slow quality to his voice that sort of screamed that he _really_ didn't want to know.

Petra stared after the sound for a moment, before her gold eyes flashed to life, the glow cutting through the darkness. "C'mon! Let's race!" And she was off, already sprinting through the tunnel.

"Wait- what?!"

"It's monster-huntin' time!" Petra yelled back over her shoulder with a huge grin, before she tensed her knees and launched herself into the air with Blaze Rods piecing together in midair, blasting her down the tunnel like jet propellers.

Jesse, Jace, Cassie, and Reuben all stared at each other for a moment... before Jesse shook her head slightly with a grin, dropping to all eights and letting Reuben clamber on, Cassie already jogging after Petra with a huff of amusement, Jace leaping onto all fours and practically galloping after the Blaze hybrid.

Same old Petra.

Jesse scuttled past a miner, who actually paused in his work to stare at Jesse with Reuben on her back. A lot of the miners- or the townspeople, really- had never seen Jesse on all eights or in action before, so whenever they _did_ see her they all stared like they'd never seen a girl with six arms before.

Jace grinned at Jesse from where he was bounding along, looking very pleased that he could keep up with Jesse's speed- the spider hybrid moved at a deceptively quick speed. "This is fun," he called over to her, casually. Cassie rolled her eyes from where the two hybrids had quickly caught up to her, but despite the speed they were moving at she was still able to keep up with them.

Jesse simply made an absentminded humming sound, before she tensed her limbs and leaped straight over a miner that was still working (though he stopped and glanced up at Jesse with undisguised interest), landing on the other side and continuing her skittering pace.

"Hey, it's Jesse! What's up?" one of the miners shouted to Jesse with a cordial tone, "good to see ya!"

The spider hybrid glanced over at him, giving him a quick wave before continuing along her path. Cassie tried to increase her speed as a minecart sped out of a nearby tunnel and pulled a neat turn, letting a miner that was eating a large piece of cake ride alongside them. The redhead's glasses were slipping, but she managed to reach up and push them higher up on her face without whacking herself with an immense amount of force.

Reuben grinned at Jace, who ended up having to pull some intensely difficult turns and jumps to avoid smacking straight into other miners. A moment later, another minecart came rushing in from the right, ending up on a direct collision course with the hybrids and Cassie.

Cassie skidded to a halt, heaving in a huge gasp to try to catch her breath- her face now flushing bright red and looking nearly the same as her hair- but Jace just leapt straight over the minecart, while Jesse did the same but did a twist in midair, shooting her hand out and firing a strand of silk at the ceiling. The silk hit the ceiling of the tunnel and yanked her to the ceiling, whereupon all eight of her limbs slammed solidly into the ceiling and she started to continue her scuttling.

"Headrush!" Reuben squeaked, but when Jesse glanced back he was beaming.

"Everyone get down!" a miner screamed, and Jesse glanced down... well, in her current orientation, she glanced up... to see a flashing block of TNT right in Jace and Cassie's path. "It's gonna blow!"

"Well, that is what TNT does," Reuben said, his voice having a vaguely innocent tone (but also half-sarcastic).

Jesse may or may not have started chuckling at that.

Thankfully, the spider hybrid and Reuben were out of the blast zone, but Cassie and Jace were right in the middle of it. The former White Pumpkin, without skipping a beat, began to speed up again, hastily hopping over the TNT and speeding herself up even further. Jace's way of getting out of the TNT blast zone was a little more fancy- he just increased his speed, running towards the TNT before launching himself into the air at the last second, the blast releasing a shockwave that pushed him into the air a little higher than he would've achieved normally, before landing next to Cassie.

The bright-red-haired girl rolled her eyes at him. "Show-off," she teased.

Jesse flipped herself back to the ground right as the redhead said this, and she shot Cassie a small smirk. "That's Jace alright- showoff of the year."

The wolf hybrid stuck his tongue out at his sister, the spacious cavern that they'd just entered allowing them room to get back to their feet without worrying about headbutting someone. The spider hybrid skidded to a halt next to Petra, who was looking around for something, before letting out a breathless laugh. "Haha... woo!" she let out a huff of breath, making Reuben reach out and pat her on the head comfortingly.

"Alright, where'd you go?" Petra muttered, gold eyes flickering back and forth as she tried to find the mysterious source of the sound.

"Where'd _what_ go?" Cassie asked. Or, well, she _sort of_ asked, more like she puffed. She was panting so hard that she looked like she might pass out.

The redhead didn't respond, still scanning the bottom of the cave, before a huge grin spread over her face victoriously. " _Ha!_ Look down there!" she exclaimed, pointing down into the hole that they were standing above.

Everybody automatically looked at what Petra was pointing at- just in time to see a shadowy, hard-to-recognize figure bolt down through another, smaller tunnel.

"So are you actually not going to tell us what this thing is?" Jesse asked, still on all eights and, as a result, forced to crane her head back so that she could make eye contact with Petra.

"Nah, the mystery's what makes it fun!" And with that, Petra leaped straight off of the ledge, Blaze Rods sparking and flaring as they came to life and caught her in mid-jump, letting her hover the rest of the way down.

Cassie let out a little whining gasp for breath, wiping some sweat off her brow with a laugh. "Well, she's energetic." With that, she hopped down onto a ledge that led to more ledges that led to being able to hop off onto the ground without breaking every bone in your body. Jace followed, but Jesse just skittered right over the edge and climbed down the wall that way.

"You two show off way too much," Cassie teased, turning to face Jace and Jesse- before she paused, eyes widening. She stood there for a second before lifting her arm and pointing over their shoulders soundlessly.

The wolf hybrid and the spider hybrid (and the pig hybrid perched on Jesse's back) looked at each other, before turning around to see several zombies lurching towards them.

"... lovely," Jesse muttered, and she rotated on the spot and started skittering at full speed in the other direction. Petra had already landed, but she hopped back into the air and proceeded to jet-propel herself down the same tunnel. Jace did a backwards jump before landing on all fours and continuing the pace he'd been at before, running right past Cassie.

"Getting in some good cardio," Cassie managed through her gasps for air, before she also turned and raced after the others.

"Hey, Jesse! Wall spiders!" Petra yelled, turning around midair to face Jesse and alert her to this development.

Jesse glanced up, seeing the smaller-than-normal spiders appear, clicking angrily and making soft hissing sounds that sounded very ticked off. However, they didn't seem to care about Petra, Jace, or Reuben.

No, almost all of their aggression was focused on the bright-red-haired Cassie.

"... well sh-" Cassie noticed that Petra was shooting her an intense glare. Honestly, sometimes the redhead was _more_ invested in Reuben's not-knowing-swears than Jesse was. "-iver me timbers and hoist the mainsail."

Petra stopped glaring at Cassie as much.

* * *

 **A/N: I am back! And here is a new chapter x3**

 **So, big news! You know how I was AWOL for, like, a month? Toni42 and I worked together to create a Minecraft: Story Mode fangame called 'Trust Fall', and after about a month and 2 weeks of work, the full version has finally been released! I won't tell you much about it- just check out the link below (get rid of the spaces and the link should work!) As long as you've got a computer, the game should work.**

 **arizaluca . itch . io / trust - fall**

 **Responses to reviews!**

 **ItzJaiden: Hehehe xD**

 **Emily the Avenger: (laughs) Don't worry about it, Em.**

 **AquaK13: Hehehe xD / Yeah, I laughed for about twenty minutes when I first saw that pick up line xD / You do realize I get every single pick-up line in my stories from Google, right? xD**

 **TheAmberShadow: ... uhhhh on the plot, because it really has nothing to do with each other...? / Great, now I'm picturing literally fizzy zombies xD / No, I know that, but Jesse's asked Cassie about it and apparently that's not where she got it from. Weird. / Originally it was cheesy... but then they got used to those, so they had to up the ante... / not quite yet xD**

 **Toni42: (winks) / Yes, Lluna the cute llama x3**

 **J.M.M.: It's been so long that I can't remember what we were talking about...**

 **LunarTheMooncake: Honestly, if someone directed those pick-up lines at me, then I would also be extremely embarrassed xD / bananananananana BATMAN**

 **EllieRose27: (thumbs up)**

 **Darkbeast Dend: Hehe**

 **chcinatown: Most people do that because having A/Ns as chapters is technically not allowed; so writing them as a story allows us to write them while worrying less about it. / ... we started dating about two weeks before Valentine's Day this year, so...**

 **Anyway, that's about it! See ya, so long, and g'bye!**

 **x.X. A.L. X.x**

 **Toni42:**


	8. Racing is Fun

"Jesse, can you talk 'em down?"

Jesse just shrugged at her twin brother. "Um, I can try. There's a big chance it's not going to work."

"That's... fine..." Cassie managed, through puffs and gasps for air. Her face was bright red at this point from how hard she'd been running. Jesse glanced over her shoulder at the girl, who looked as if she might run herself right into the ground.

"Um, are you okay, Cassie?"

The redhead readjusted her glasses, which slid down her nose quickly back to where it had been before. "I'm... fine..."

"You are redder than your _hair_ right now!" Jace scolded, slowing down a little so that he wasn't practically bounding a hundred feet in front of the girl. "It's okay to ask for a break when you need it."

"Not... when we're... running from... cave spiders..." Cassie puffed, reaching up and nudging her glasses up. With how hard she was running, though, she nearly smacked her glasses right off of her face.

Jesse glanced over her shoulder, this time over past Cassie, and opened her mouth, eyes slowly starting to glow red. What came out were not _words_ \- not in the typical English language, anyway- but a series of strange hissing sounds.

Several of the spiders actually came to a slow stop, clicking and hissing uncertainly at the spider hybrid. The rest, alas, did not.

"Er... well, at least some of them... stopped," Jesse said, somewhat feebly.

"Sorry..."

"Well, it's not _your_ fault. 'Sides, if we _weren't_ hybrids, we'd be fighting through this whole mob anyway, so it's not that bad," Jesse said cheerfully, calling over her shoulder and slowing down a little.

Reuben was watching the whole situation from Jesse's back, watching the way Cassie was slowing down, watching the way she was starting to turn so red it was concerning that she might've actually started blowing a coronary, before he swivelled back to face Petra, who was hovering along so fast that she'd nearly jet-blasted herself to the end of the tunnel and then had forced herself to slow down. (She was hardly about to leave the whole group behind.) "Petra! Can you use the lava to-"

He wasn't even finished lifting his finger to point at the lava when Petra's already glowing eyes lit up even more. "Oh- oh yeah! Jesse, you don't mind if I kill the spiders?"

"As long as you don't kill _me_ I'm cool with anything at the moment," Jesse replied, skittering several paces forward and checking over her shoulder.

Petra curled her hands into tight fists, her gold eyes flaring slightly as she narrowed her eyes. Her hands trembled momentarily.

A single bubble on the surface of the lava popped.

Petra's hand flashed up, her golden arm searing brightly, and spread her fingers out wide rapidly in a single, sharp flicking motion. Instantly, the lava around them rippled unnaturally, almost like it was water and not molten rock, before rising from the ground and forming into the vague shape of Petra's hand, dripping searing hot lava on the ground, before she slapped her hand downwards.

The giant lava-hand slammed into the ground, instantly incinerating several of the cave spiders and releasing a sickly sweet stench in the air. Incidentally, the hand barely missed Cassie by a foot.

"F-" Cassie made a frustrated growl, cutting off the expletive before Reuben could catch it. "Could you _be more careful_ , you nearly hit me right there!"

"Who said that I wasn't trying to?" Petra said innocently.

Cassie growled softly, narrowing her eyes at Petra. They flickered red momentarily, but then she gritted her teeth and just kept running- she couldn't waste any air on yelling at Petra right now.

Jesse's head swivelled back forward, and she leapt over a small break in the ground over a bubbling pool of lava, Reuben giving a little surprised squeal of laughter as she did so. Catching up to Petra, she could hear the displeased complaints of the cave spiders behind her as Cassie hopped over and Jace did as well, Petra still hovering in midair and making little waves of heat ripple through the air as she pointed ahead, some of the Blaze Rods rotating more quickly for a moment. "There! It went into that cave!" the redhead shouted, a little shadow darting through the cave opening at the end of the tunnel.

"On it!" Jace called back, still bounding along. Cassie's pace was starting to slow drastically, her very much human lungs and muscles and... really everything finally starting to give up on catching up to the hybrids, but she kept pounding along.

Jesse made a mental note to get her some water once they'd slowed down.

Petra's golden eyes flicked to them, before she grinned and soared straight through a curtain of lava, sending little sizzling drops of lava everywhere in a tremendous splash. Reuben squeaked and ducked as Jesse swerved to avoid getting caught on fire, Cassie barely managing to avoid a droplet of lava and in fact getting a tiny splot of it on her shoulder, which she frantically attempted to swat out, and Jace did a tuck-and-roll in the nick of time to avoid getting a faceful of the stuff.

"Aaaaand Petra's in the home stretch!" the Blaze hybrid announced with a huge grin from where she was soaring through the air, gliding towards the cavern opening and dodging a few cave spiders that were attempting to leap on her in midair, although they seemed a little hesitant to do so because... let's face it, Petra's half Blaze. A creature that is pretty much composed of literal fire.

Spiders plus fire equals lots of dead spiders.

However, they didn't seem to have any of same qualms about jumping on Cassie, and the brighter redhead gave a shallow little gasp and was barely able to duck under a spider as it attempted to jump on her, stumbling a few steps before straightening back up and continuing her sprint. Her face was... okay, actually, it was starting to worry Jesse how she was able to get to that color of red. She looked like a cooked lobster.

"Sis, pay attention! I don't think you wanna get cooked!" Jace barked at her, making her blink rapidly at him with green and red eyes before swiveling back to face the front- just in time to see that their path was cutting off into a cliff, dropping off dramatically and leaving only a few pillars of stone, dirt, and who-knows-what else to reach the cavern entrance.

"Oh, f-" Cassie cut herself off in favor of not falling to her death, while Jace bolted forward farther to avoid tripping Cassie or Jesse up. Jesse simply tensed her limbs and launching herself through the air, Reuben letting out an alarmed squeak and burying his face into her shoulderblades. There was a moment of Jesse feeling weightless as she quickly shifted her limbs, joints flipping back to normal human for a moment, come on, come on, _come on_ -!

The webbing that she shot out attached to the wall of the tunnel and kind of on the part where that met the ceiling of the cave opening.

"Hang on, Reuben!" she hissed at him, feeling the pig hybrid's arms tighten on her- and then she tensed into a smaller form, retracting the string as she went soaring down into a sort of swing motion, avoiding slamming full-force into the floor and in fact swinging into the little cavern, the floor dropping away to reveal a lower area where Petra was already touching down.

A moment longer, just _one second_ -

Jesse snapped the webbing back into her hand, doing a sort of tight roll in midair before unfurling her limbs from the ball she'd formed herself into, Reuben practically strangling her from where his arms were clinging to her, switching the limbs around again (she almost gave a little relieved sigh as her knees and elbows cracked; that felt kind of nice) before her legs touched into the ground, knees bending unnaturally.

Well, unnaturally if she was a full human.

Her third set of arms were occupied keeping Reuben on her back, but her second set and then her first touched down as well, joints bending as far as they could, before Jesse reversed momentum and launched her back legs into a sort of flip, landing normally with her arms pressing Reuben firmly into her back, lungs scrabbling to gather themselves because _holy crap_ that was the coolest thing Jesse had done in a few years.

Petra apparently thought so too, because as Jesse spun around and set a rather tense Reuben onto the floor, Petra's still-steaming fist clunked solidly into her armor, the Blaze hybrid giving her a grin that rivaled the one she'd had on her face when she'd won just now. "Holy _crap_ , that was _awesome_ , Jesse! Good to see you still can be acrobatic." And she delivered another friendly punch to the shoulder.

"I've _got_ to be acrobatic, that's my whole thing," Jesse teased, as Jace landed on the ground a moment later, doing a little happy dance. His hair was totally messed up, but his green eyes were sparkling with joy, and his tail was whipping back and forth so fast it could probably have been used as some sort of weapon.

Cassie slammed into the ground a second later as well, face so red that it looked like she'd burst a blood vessel. Or several. All in the facial region. Her glasses were almost about to drop right off of her face, her hair was just as disheveled as Jace's, and her chest was heaving dramatically as she tried to drag air back into her lungs.

Jesse's smile faded instantly, and she went over to the redhead, running her fingers carefully along Cassie's shoulders, absentmindedly noting the way sweat was pouring down Cassie's face and her cardigan felt unnaturally warm. "Notch, Cassie, if you'd needed to stop you could've stopped."

"Yeah," and Jace wasn't grinning so much anymore either as he straightened back up, clapping a hand to her back and accidentally forcing Cassie to cough. "You look beat."

Cassie gave an incoherent wheeze and gesticulated vaguely with one hand, still redder than her own hair and looking a bit like she wanted to pass out.

Petra's smile had also disappeared. You could practically see gears clicking away in her head as she stared at the other redhead for a few moments.

And then that moment passed.

"Crud, Cassie, you look like you decided to go sit in a sauna for an hour or something." Petra trotted over, resting a hand on Cassie's shoulder rather awkwardly and letting her gold eyes meet Cassie's tired green ones. "Next time we go for a run, bring like... I dunno, a horse or a bike or something."

Cassie gave a snort, a strange smile quirking over her lips. "Yes, Petra, the next time you randomly ask us to go on an adventure in a probably very narrow cave or cliff structure, I will happily bring a big horse that is taller than both Jace and Jesse combined. That sounds like a lovely idea."

"We're not _that_ short!" Jace and Jesse chorused, Jesse crossing all of her arms while Jace simply pouted at the two redheads.

"Of course you're not," Petra said, in a rather kind tone that immediately made warning bells pop up the siblings' heads.

Cassie finished the statement, still sounding out of breath but giving them a lopsided grin. "You're shorter."

Jace stuck his tongue out Cassie, before drawing it back in as he regarded Petra almost loftily. "You know Petra, you're so hot you'd make the devil sweat."

Petra crossed her arms, tilting her head back as a smirk snuck over her face. "Oh, really? Well, you're looking rather... _fetching_ yourself." She reached out and patted him on the back, voice lowering into a nearly seductive purr. "Are your paws tired? You've been running through my mind all day."

Jace let his eyelids droop as a flirtatious smile snuck over his face. "Hm, I think I must be being flirted with by the devil..." He turned his head and stood on his tiptoes a bit to whisper in her ear, "'cause you're hot as hell."

"Cut it ouutttt, you two are so weird," Reuben huffed, rolling his eyes at his aunt and uncle. (He called them that. Jace had once teasingly asked Petra if that meant that the two of them were married. She had promptly smacked him.)

Jesse gave a light laugh at the way Jace and Petra had automatically popped apart at that, gently rubbing Cassie on the back with one of her lower arms absentmindedly. "What's new? Anyway, you should try riding on my back next time, Cassie- Reuben's starting to get fast enough that he doesn't have to ride me, and I'd really rather you not make your heart pop before you're even thirty."

Cassie rubbed her chest absentmindedly, adjusting her glasses as her face finally started to look less like she'd just been cooked alive. "Hm. I'll keep that in mind."

A friendly clap on the back from the spider hybrid, and Jesse was twisting to give Petra a cheery grin. "Welp, looks like we're here. I hope all the mystery lives up to the hype." And with that, she started strolling down the makeshift hallway, pulling out her sword defensively.

As if that was some sort of supernatural cue, there was the strange bleating... grumbling... whatever-it-was sound, the acoustics of the cavern sending it bouncing off the walls and magnifying it to a strange roar, seeming to originate from this offshaft.

"Alright, here we come, mystery monster," Jesse said cheerfully, Cassie gathering herself- although she still looked rather hot and probably needed some water when they were no longer in this weird cavern.

"We should probably sound less happy," Jace pointed out, still grinning with his tail wagging back and forth cheerily. Reuben seemed rather unconcerned himself, although he was tensed slightly, as if in some sort of preparation.

"Oh, yeah." Jesse promptly adopted the facial expression of someone who was at a funeral. "How's this?"

Petra closed her eyes, a huge grin forming over her face as if she was either repressing laughter or resisting a facepalm. Actually, scratch the either. She was probably just trying not to laugh and facepalm at the same time. "I think I prefer you being cheerful."

"Alright." And there was Jesse, back to looking very chirpy as her lovely spider-hybrid self.

Despite the cheery attitude, though, the group _was_ taking this seriously, as was probably evidenced as they moved into battle formations. Petra allowed herself to hover to the back, Jace dropping so that he was behind _her_ , while Cassie dominated the center and kind of sandwiched Reuben between her and Jesse, who was leading the way with her sword out and at the ready. Easing their way in- and trying not to make more noise than an elephant in a glass factory- Jesse edged through the tunnel before cautiously peeping over the edge of the bluff they'd arrived at.

At the bottom of the pit they'd just come to, making soft grumbling noises, was a cream-colored llama with a blue-and-magenta colored scarf wrapped around its neck.

* * *

 **A/N: Yes, I am alive, but no, I'm not going to be super super active for a while, if at all.**

 **So as you all might know from one (or more) of my other stories, I'm in my senior year of high school, and planning to apply to art school. And to do so, I have to get my portfolio ready. As of right now... I have little to nothing I'd be comfortable with showing colleges when I apply; not to mention that these art schools are REALLY high level. (Except for one but I still want to take that one really seriously.) I'm also working on Fata Morgana (formerly known as Phantasmagoria) and a few other projects.**

 **I'm... not ready at all, so from now until sometime around early December, I will probably rarely surface on here. (Not that I've been doing that recently, sorry! I've been busy.) When I DO come on, updates will be very sporadic. Please don't be surprised if I don't reappear on here until after that early December deadline- I am going to be _snowed under_ with portfolio preparation, not to mention my last year of high school.**

 **I would, however, like to thank you for following these stories- you guys are really wonderful, and I wish I could update more often (even though my writing is sort of cruddy lol).**

 **Responses to reviews!**

 **LunartheMooncake: Indeed xD / Sorryyy xD / oh whoop xD / Character interaction is great xD**

 **EllieRose27: I am very sorry that I don't remember what we were talking about, but yes. xD**

 **Darkbeast Dend: Thank you! And I'm glad that it made you laugh. / (thumbs up)**

 **chcinatwon: Very sorry about that. Fanfiction technically does not allow A/N chapters (though this does not stop some authors from doing it anyway) and I'd really just rather not risk it. / I started dating him February of this year. Movie Mode just hit its 2nd year anniversary and has been 'alive' for three years. I'm sorry that it seems like a carbon copy, but we just see characters very similarly and the reactions are generally going to be very similar. And I do agree that there is probably a way you could've phrased that more kindly.**

 **Emily the Avenger: I do, but only because it was used in a comic and I had to look it up and went "OH" promptly afterwards.**

 **TheAmberShadow: Barely, but yes, the armor-wrecking llama is here xD / Yeees, some of them I went "hm?" and looked up the meaning of... and regretted afterwards xD / Probably, but there's also blood, slight swearing, lots of topics that children probably would not enjoy xD / I don't want a spider on me, but if there's one nearby and it's not going to bother me, I'm fine with them. / Well... Jace is okay, Reuben's not half bad, Cassie is... Cassie, but yes, Jesse's pretty good with animals. xD / It's... well, if you go find it, it has a better synopsis on there xD**

 **AquaK13: Yep! / Yeah, I really love how it goes. Character development is wonderful. / I don't hate on ships; unless they're ships that are really inappropriate and aren't just joke ships. (I've seen Ivor x Jesse and like... they're... they're like at LEAST twenty years apart in age? Like wtf?) But gay ships or whatever, I'm good. / Okay. (starts looking at the worst spots to stick in pick up lines) / The game's accessible at the link (or just go to my game site on itchio); and it is available for free since it's a fangame x3 / Nope. / Ye :3**

 **EmLee: Heh, yeah, I love that. / Pfft, I might just use that in the future. / I love puns :3**

 **Guest: Thank you! I'm glad you enjoyed it.**

 **Welp, that seems to be it for now! See ya, so long, and g'bye! I'll try to be back soon :3**

 **x.X. A.L. X.x**


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